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nitcrsitjc Oition 



NATURE, ADDRESSES, AND LECTURES 

BEING VOLUME I. 

OF 

EMERSON'S COMPLETE WORKS 



MAR J^^ ^3^' 



NATURE, ADDRESSES, AND 
LECTURES 



liY 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 



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I3eU ant EcoiBrt CtitfoH 



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BOSTON 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

Wcii York: 11 Ea'-t Sevenieen+h Street 

Ctw nitierfiiDe 15re00, Camfiri&fle 
1884 




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VHH\vrljJht. If^ «"i> lf*TlV 
l->\ I'Mll.Urs, !5AMrj«v»N A" I'O AN\> UAI.ni WAl.W KMEUSON. 

.4// rights iVv-w^vi/, 







\'l:\'A'A'l()U.Y NOTE. 



Thk fii'Ht <;ij(}ii v(>]utm;H of Uk; pn;H<;rit rMJition of 
-''^r. '''n<;rHfUi'H writings contain \t'iH c^Mca.U-A F>h- 
ivK aH \it'. ](;h ihcrri, (;^ca-,\>\, Hotiic rcvinion of t,fi« 
'.actuation anri fiio <^)n'<;<;Uon '»f obviouH uiintakfiH. 
'.*!S<; nintJ) voliirn<; r^iinj)riH<;H tJx; \>m'A;n chtm-u by 
'*/'. Knic/wni from tli<; " J'ooniH " ami "May-J^ay" 
> foifii 111", " S<;I<M;f/;<J. Po<;»iH," with tJi<; a<J'Ji- 
tion of H*;;no [jooniH which were ornitid in tfiat H<> 
Icf^ion, anri Home that have remaine/l rui[)uhliH}i<;'l. 
If) many inntarjccH cmendationg which were p<m- 
ciiled ifj tlie rrjargin by Mr. Kmernrm, but were 
not ■.nA\i)\AA-A in tfie " Heh}(^5(l Pf>emH," are now In- 
tro<lu(M5(i, ijjjon tfie j^round tliat, an they H<j<;m in 
fiave HUi^i^(iHU;<\ themH<;JveH at the time when h'lH 
j)OwerH were in f,hr;ir fiilleHt vif^or, it may fairly 
be Hijf>|>oH<;<l tliat he woiilrj, lipon r(;e,onHideration, 
have jwbnitt^;*] tliem. 'Hie t<;nth an<] eleventli v<>\~ 
nmcH c.onrtiHt of lecturcH hithert^> uriprint*;d, and of 
" Oc.eaHional AdrJrcHWjH" and other prow>writing^H 
wliifih liave appeared Hcparately or in period icalw. 
Tlie Hclecrtion from Mr. KmerHon'H MSS. haH 



iv PNFFATOin' XOTE. 

boon maclo in pnrsuanoo of the autliovity givon in 
liis will to n»o. as his litonuy exeontov, aoting in 
co-oj)(U-ation with his chililron, to pnblish or with- 
hold from jnibllontion any of his un}>ubllsho(l pa- 
t)ors. 

Tho portrait in the first volimie was etehod by 
]\Ir. Sehoff from a photographic copy (kindly fur- 
nished by INIr. Aloxjuider Ireland, of INlanchester, 
England) of a daguerreotype taken in 1847 or 
1848, probably in England. 

J. E. CABOT. 



CONTENTS. 

> 

PAOB 

Nati'RE 13 

TiiK American Scfiolar. An Oration delivered before 
the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, Aug. 31, 1837 81 

An Addrkh.s delivered before the Senior Class in Divinity 
College, Cambridge, Jul}- 15, 1838 117 

Literary P^tiiics. An Oration delivered before the Liter- 
ary Societies of Dartmouth College, July 24, 1838 . . 149 

The Method of Nature. An Oration delivered before 
the Society of the Adelphi, in Waterville (Jollege, Maine, 
August 11, 1841 181 

Man the Keformer. A Lecture read before the Mechan- 
ics' Apprentices' Library Association, Boston, January 25, 
1841 215 

Lecture on the Times. Read at the Masonic Templo, 
Boston, December 2, 1841 245 

The Conservative. A Lecture read in the Masonic Tem- 
ple, Boston, December 9, 1841 277 

The Transcendentalist. A Lecture read in the Masonic 
Temple, Boston, January, 1842 309 

The Youno Ajierican. A Lecture read before the Mer- 
cantile Library Association, in Boston, February 7, 1844 . 341 



NATURE 



A SUBTLE chain of countless rings 
The next unto the farthest brings ; 
The eye reads omens where it goes, 
And speaks all languages the rose ; 
And, striving to be man, the worm 
Mounts through all the spires of form. 




RECEIVED, ^"^t. 



INTIKjIK^CTTON. 




OuE aj^fj i'h njtroHpoctivo. It }>uil(lH tli<; Hf;pul- 
chrcH of the fathoi'H. It wiit<;s hi'j^ntpliioH, liiHto- 
ri«;H, and criti<;i.sfn. I'ho foro^oing g;(;norationH 
bc'li<;l(l Ciod and nature fax;c to face ; wo, through 
tl)(jir eyoH. Why nhould not we alHO enjoy an 
(original relation U) the universe? Why Hhould 
not we have a poetry and [>}iiIoHOp}iy of inniglit 
and not of tnixlition, and a religion by revelation 
to UH, and not the history of theirs? EnihoHonie<l 
for a season in natui-e, whose floods of life stream 
around and through us, and invit<} us by the pow- 
ers they supply, to action jirojjoi-tionefl to nature, 
why should we grope among tfie (by bones of the 
past, or put the living generation intfj masrjuerade 
out of its faded wardrobe ? 'i'he sun shines to-<iay 
alsf>. There is more wool anrl flax in the fi<;lds. 
There are new lands, n(;w men, new thoughts. 
Let us demand <)\\y own works and laws and wor- 
ship. 

Undoubt<idly we have no rpiestions to ask which 
are unanswerable. We must trust the perfection 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

of the creation so far as to believe that whatever 
eiu'iosity the order of thmgs has awakened in our 
minds, the order of things can satisfy. Every 
man's condition is a sokitiou in hierogljqDhic to 
those inquiries he would put. lie acts it as life, 
before he apprehends it as truth. In like manner, 
nature is already, in its forms and tendencies, de- 
scribing its own design. Let us interrogate the 
great apparition that shines so peacefully aroimd 
us. Let us inquire, to what end is nature ? 

All science has one aim, namely, to find a theory 
of nature. We have theories of races and of func- 
tions, but scarcely yet a remote approach to an idea 
of creation. We are now so far from the road to 
truth, that religious teachers dispute and hate each 
other, and speculative men are esteemed imsound 
and frivolous. But to a soimd judgment, the most 
abstract truth is the most practical. Whenever a 
true theory appears, it will be its own evidence. 
Its test is, that it wall explain all phenomena. Now 
many are thought not only unexplained but inex- 
plicable ; as lang-uage, sleep, madness, dreams, beasts, 
sex. 

Philosophically considered, the imiverse is com- 
posed of Nature and the Soid. Strictly speaking, 
therefore, all that is separate from us, all which 
Pliilosophy distinguishes as the NOT me, that is, 
both natm'e and art, all other men and my o^vn 



INTRODUCTION. H 

body, must be ranked under this name, Nature, 
In enumerating the values of nature and casting up 
their sum, I shall use the word in both senses ; — 
in its common and in its philosojohical import. In 
inquiries so general as our present one, the inaccu- 
racy is not material ; no confusion of thought will 
occur. Nature^ in the common sense, refers to es- 
sences unchanged bj^ man ; space, the air, the river, 
the leaf. Art is applied to the mixture of his will 
with the same things, as in a house, a canal, a statue, 
a picture. But his operations taken together are 
so insignificant, a little chipping, baking, patching, 
and washing, that in an impression so gi'and as that 
of the world on the human mind, they do not vary 
the result. 




'<bv. 



NATURE 



CIIA11ER 



To go into .solitude, a man needs to retire as 
much from his chamber as from society. I am not 
solitary wliilst I read and write, though nobody is 
with me. ( But if a man would be alone, let him 
look at the stars. The rays that come from those 
heavenly worlds will separate between him and what 
he touches. On(5 might tliink the atmosphere was 
made transparent with this design, to give man, 
in the heaveidy bodies, the perpetual presence of 
the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great 
they are ! If the stars should appear one night in 
a thousand years, how would men believe and adore ; 
and preserve for many generations the remembrance 
of the city of God which had been shown ! But 
every night come out these envoys of beauty, and 
light the universe with their admonishing smile. 

The stars awaken a certain reverence, because 
though always present, they are inaccessible ; but 
all natural objects make a kindred impression, when 
the mind is open to their influence. Nature never 



14 NATUJUS. 

woars a mt>au appoanmce. Noithor ilot>s tho wis- 
est man extort her swi'ot, aiul lose his euriosity by 
tiiulini;' out all her pertVetiou. Nature never ho- 
i'anie a toy io a wist^ spirit. The tK)wers, tht> ani- 
mals, the aiDimtains, retUn'ted the wisileni ol" his best 
hour, as uuu'h as they havl tlolighteil the simplieity 
ot" his ehihlhoiul. 

^^'hen we speak of nature in this nianntu", we have 
a ilistiuet but niost poetieal sense in the niind. AVe 
mean tbe inteii'rity of impression made by manifold 
natural objeets. It is tJiis whieh distinpiishes the 
stiek of timber of the wcHuWutter, fi-om the ti\H> of 
the [H>et. The eharuiiuii' landseape whieh 1 saw 
this morning is indubitably made up of some twenty 
or thirty farms, sillier owns this field, LiH'ke that, 
and iSlanniuii' the woodland bevond. But none of 
them owns the lamlseape. Theiv is a pn>pertv in 
the horizon whieh ni» nuin has but ho whose eyeean 
intei^rate all the parts, that is, the poet. This is 
the best part of tl\ese men's farms, yet to this their 
warrant v-deeds iiivt^ no title. 

To speak tridy, few adult pei-sons ean see natuiv. 
Most jKn-sons do not see the sun. At least they 
ha\ e a vei*y supertleial seeing'. The sun illuminates 
cnily the eye of the nuin, but sliines into the eye and 
tlie heart of the ehild. The lover oi nature is he 
whose inward anil outwanl senses aiv still tndy ad- 
justeil to eaih i>ther : who has retained the spirit 



NA TURJC. 15 

of infancy even into the era of manhood. His in- 
tercour-se with heaven and earth l^ecomes part of his 
<laily food. In the presence of nature a wild de- 
light runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. 
Nature says, — he is my creature, and maugre all 
his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me. 
Not the sun or the summer alone, but every hour 
and season yields its tribute of delight ; for every 
hour and change conesponds to and authorizes a 
different state of the mind, from breathless noon to 
grimmest midnight. Nature is a setting that fits 
equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In good 
health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. 
Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twi- 
light, under a clouded sky, without having in my 
tlioughts any o(;currence of special good fortune, I 
have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to 
the brink of fear. In the woods, too, a man casts 
off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what 
period Hoev<!r of life, is always a chili]. In the 
woods is perpetual youth. Within these planta^ 
tions of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a per- 
ennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not 
how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In 
the woods, w(i return to reason and faith. There I 
feel that nothing can b<;fall me in life;, — no dis- 
grace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which 
nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground. 



16 NATURJE. 

— my head butlunl by ihe Mitho air, and upllftod 
into inlinite spaco, — all luoau egotism vauisluvs. I 
become a traus])aivnt eye-ball ; 1 am uotbini; : I see 
all ; the eunvnts of tlie Universal Inking eireulato 
tluoui;l» nie ; 1 am part or pareel of (uul. The 
name of the nearest friend sonnds then foreign and 
aoeidental : to be brothers, to be a(.H|naintaiiees, — 
master or servant, is then a tritle and a disturbance. 
I am the lover of ntu-ontained and innnortal beanty. 
In the wilderness, 1 find something more dear and 
eoimate than in streets or villages. In the trampiil 
landscape, and especially in the distant line of the 
liorizon, man InJiolds somewhat as beantiful as his 
oM'n natnre. 

The greatest delight which the tields and woods 
minister is the snggestion of an oecidt relation be- 
tween mail and the vegetable. I am not alone and 
nnacknowlediied. Thev nod to me, and I to them. 
The waving of the bonghs in the storm is new to 
me and old. It takes me by snrprise, and yet is 
not unknown. Its eifect is like that of a higher 
thonsiht or a better emotion coming over me, when 
I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right. 

Yet it is certain that the power to pivduce this 
delight does not reside in natnre, but in man, or in 
a harmony of both. It is necessary to use these 
pleasuivs with great temperance. For nature is 
not always tricked in holiday attire, but the simie 



NATURE. 17 

scene which yeBterday breathed perfume and glit- 
tered as for the frolic of the nymphs, is overspiea<l 
with melancholy to-<lay. Nature always wears the 
colors of the spirit. To a man laboring under ca- 
lamity, the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it. 
Then there is a kind of contempt of the landscape 
felt by him who has just lost by death a dear friend. 
The sky is less grand as it shuts down over less 

worth in the population. 
vor>. I. 2 



CHAPTER II. 

COMMODITY. 

Whoever considers the final cause of the worhl 
will discern a nuiltitude of uses that enter as parts 
into that result. Thoy all admit of being thrown 
into one of the following classes : Connnodity ; 
Beauty ; Language ; and Discipline. 

Under the general name of commodity, I rank 
all those advantages which our senses owe to na- 
ture. This, of course, is a benefit whii'li is tempo- 
rary and nuHliatc, not ultimate, like its service to the 
soul. Yet although low, it is perfect in its kiiul, 
and is the only use of nature which all men appre- 
hend. The misery of man appears lil^e childish 
petulance, when we explore the steady and prodigal 
provision that has been made for his support and 
delight on this green ball which floats him through 
the heavens. AVhat angels invented these splendid 
ornaments, these rich conveniences, this ocean of 
air above, this ocean of water beneath, this firma- 
ment of earth between ? this zodiac of lights, tliis 
tent of drop})ing clouds, this striped coat of cli- 
mates, this fourfold year? Beasts, fire, water, 



COMMODITY. 19 

stones, and corn serve him. The field is at once 
liis floor, his work-yard, his play-ground, his garden, 
and his bed. 

" More servants wait on man 
Than he '11 take notice of." 

Nature, in its ministry to man, is not only the 
material, but is also the process and the result. 
All the parts incessantly work into each other's 
hands for the profit of man. The wind sows the 
seed ; the sun evaporates the sea ; the wind blows 
the vapor to the field ; the ice, on the other side of 
the planet, condenses rain on this ; the rain feeds 
the plant ; the plant feeds the animal ; and thus 
the endless circulations of the divine charity nour- 
ish man. 

The useful arts are reproductions or new com- 
binations by the wit of man, of the same natural 
benefactors. lie no longer waits for favoring 
gales, but by means of steam, he realizes the fable 
of JEolus's bag, and carries the two and thirty 
winds in the boiler of his boat. To diminish fric- 
ti<m, he paves the road with iron bars, and, mount- 
ing a coach with a ship-load of men, animals, and 
merchandise behind him, he darts through the 
country, from town to town, lilie an eagle or a 
swallow through the air. By the aggi-egate of 
these aids, how is the face of the world changed, 
from the era of Noah to that of Napoleon ! The 



20 COMMODITY. 

private poor man liatli cities, ships, canals, bridges, 
built for liini. lie goes to the post-office, and the 
linnian race run on his errands ; to the book-shop, 
and the human race read and write of all that hap- 
pens, for him ; to the court-house, and nations re- 
pair his wrongs. He sets his house upon the road, 
and the human race go forth every morning, and 
shovel out the snow, and cut a path for him. 

But there is no need of specifying particulars in 
this class of uses. The catalogue is endless, and 
tlie examples so oln-ioiis, that I shall leave them to 
the reader's reflection, with the general remark, 
that this mercenary benefit is one which has re- 
spect to a farther good. A man is fed, not that he 
may be fed, but that he may work. 



CHAPTER III. 

BEAUTY. 

A NOBLER want of man is served by nature, 
namely, the love of Beauty. 

The ancient Greeks called the world koV//os, 
beauty. Such is the constitution of all things, or 
such the plastic power of the human eye, that the 
primary foraas, as the sky, the mountain, the tree, 
the animal, give us a delight in and for tJtern- 
selves ; a pleasure arising from outline, color, mo- 
tion, and grouping. This seems partly owing to 
the eye itself. The eye is the best of artists. By 
the mutual action of its structure and of the-Jaws 
of light, perspective is produced, which integrates 
every mass of objects, of what character soever, 
into a well colored and shaded globe, so that where 
the particular objects are mean and unaffecting, the 
landscape which they compose is round and sym- 
metrical. And as the eye is the best comjjoser, so 
light is the first of painters. There is no object so 
fold that intense light will not make beautiful. 
And the stimulus it affords to the sense, and a 
sort of infinitude which it hath, like space and 



22 BEAUTY. 

time, make all matter gay. Even the corpse lias 
its own beauty. But besides tliis general grace 
diffused over nature, almost all the individual 
forms are agreeable to the eye, as is proved by 
our endless imitations of some of them, as the 
acorn, the grape, the pine-cone, the wheat-ear, the 
egg, the wings and forms of most birds, the lion's 
claw, the serpent, the butterfly, sea-shells, flames, 
clouds, buds, leaves, and the forms of many trees, 
as the palm. 

For better consideration, we may distribute the 
aspects of Beauty in a threefold manner. 

1. First, the simple perception of natural forms 
is a delight. The influence of the forms and ac- 
tions in nature is so needful to man, that, in its 
lowest functions, it seems to lie on the confines of 
conunodity and beauty. To the body and mind 
which have been cramped by noxious work or 
compau}^, nature is medicinal and restores their 
tone. The tradesman, the attorney comes out of 
the din and craft of the street and sees the sky 
and the woods, and is a man again. In their eter- 
nal cahu, he finds himself. The health of the eye 
seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, 
so long as we can see far enough. 

But in other hom-s. Nature satisfies by its loveli- 
ness, and without any mixture of corporeal benefit. 
I see the spectacle of morning from the hiU-top 



BEAUTY. 23 

over against my house, from day-break to sun-rise, 
with emotions which an angel might share. The 
long slender bars of cloud float like fishes in the 
sea of crimson light. From the earth, as a shore, 
I look out into that silent sea. I seem to partake 
its rapid transformations ; the active enchantment 
reaches my dust, and I dilate and conspire with 
the morning wind. How does Nature deify us 
with a few and cheap elements ! Give me health 
and a day, and I will make the j)omp of empe- 
rors ridiculous. The dawn is my Assyria ; the sun- 
set and moon-rise my Paphos, and unimaginable 
realms of faerie ; broad noon shall be my England 
of the senses and the understanding ; the night 
shall be my Germany of mystic philosophy and 
dreams. 

Kot less excellent, except for our less suscep- 
tibility in the afternoon, was the charm, last even- 
ing, of a January sunset. The western clouds 
divided and subdivided themselves into pink flakes 
modulated with tints of unspeakable softness, and 
the air had so much life and sweetness that it was 
a pain to come within doors. What was it that 
nature would say? Was there no meaning in the 
live repose of the valley behind the mill, and which 
Homer or Shakspeare could not re-form for me in 
words ? The leafless trees become spires of flame 
in the sunset, with the blue east for their back- 



24 BEAUTY. 

gromicl, and tlie stars of the dead calices of flow- 
ers, and every withered stem and stnbble rimed 
with frost, contribute something to the mute mu- 
sic. 

The inhabitants of cities suppose that the coun- 
try landscape is pleasant only half the year. I 
please myself with the graces of the winter scen- 
ery, and believe that we are as much touched by it 
as by the genial influences of smnmer. To the at- 
tentive eye, each moment of the year has its own 
beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every 
hour, a picture which was never seen before, and 
which shall never be seen again. The heavens 
change every moment, and reflect their glory or 
gloom on the plains beneath. The state of the 
crop in the surrounding farms alters the expression 
of the earth from week to week. The succession 
of native plants in the pastures and roadsides, 
which makes the silent clock by which time tells 
the summer hours, will make even the divisions of 
the day sensible to a keen observer. The tribes of 
birds and insects, like the plants punctual to their 
time, follow each other, and the year has room for 
all. By watercourses, the variety is greater. In 
July, the blue pontederia or pickerel-weed blooms 
in large beds in the shallow parts of our pleasant 
river, and swarms with yellow butterflies in con- 
tinual motion. Art cannot rival this pomp of pur- 



BEAUTY. 25 

pie and gold. Indeed the river is a perpetual gala, 
and boasts each month a new ornament. 

But this beauty of Nature which is seen and 
felt as beauty, is the least part. The shows of day, 
the dewy morning, the rainbow, mountains, or- 
chards in blossom, stars, moonlight, shadows in 
still water, and the like, if too eagerly hunted, be- 
come shows merely, and mock us with their unreal- 
ity. Go out of the house to see the moon, and 't is 
mere tinsel ; it will not please as when its light 
shines upon your necessary journey. The beauty 
that shimmers in the yellow afternoons of October, 
who ever could clutch it ? Go forth to find it, and 
it is gone ; 't is only a mirage as you look from the 
windows of diligence. 

2. The presence of a higlier, namely, of the spirit- 
ual element is essential to its perfection. The high 
and divine beauty which can be loved without ef- 
feminacy, is that which is found in combination 
with the hmnan will. Beauty is the mark God 
sets upon virtue. Every natural action is graceful. 
Every heroic act is also decent, and causes the 
place and the bystanders to shine. We are taught 
by great actions that the universe is the property 
of every individual in it. Every rational creature 
has all nature for his dowry and estate. It is his, 
if he will. He may divest himself of it ; he may 
creep into a corner, and abdicate liis kingdom, as 



26 /.Firrv. 

most mon do, but lu> is iMititloil to tho worUl by bis 
oonstitution. li\ |>roiH>rti<»n to llw i>iu>v«;v «>t" bis 
tbouii'bt aiul wiU, bi> takos up tlu> woiUl bito bin\- 
solt". '• All tboso tbiuii's u>i- wbli-b uiou plt>uii'b, 
buiUl, or sail, obov virtue : " saiJ Sallust. " Tbo 
whuls ami wavos," saitl (Vibbon, "aro always ou 
tbo sitb> of tbo ablost uavigjvtors." So are tbo sun 
and moon and all tbo stall's of boavou. Wbon a 
noblo aot is ilono, — jH^ivhanoo in a soimio of >iioat 
natural boauty : w bon LiH>nlilas and bis tbree bun- 
divil inartvrs oonsnnio «>no ilav in ilvinsi", and tbo 
sun auil moon o^nuo oaob anil look at tboui onoo in 
tbo stoop doiilo o( Tborniopybo : ubon Arnold 
AVinkolriod. in tbo bii;b Al[>s, undor tbo sbadow 
of tbo avalanobo, utitbors in bis side a sboaf of Aus- 
trian spoars to broak tbo lino for bis I'onirailos : 
aiv not tboso bonvs ontitloil to add tbo boanty of 
tbo soono to tbo boauty of tbo dood ? AVhen tbo 
bark of C^olnn\bns noavs tbo sboiv oi Aiuovioa : — 
bofoiv it, tbo boaob linod Avitb savasivs, tlooiny; out 
oi all tboir buts of oano ; tbo sou boblud : ami 
tbo purplo mountains of tbo Indian Aivbipolaji-o 
aivund, oan wo sojKirato tbo man fi\>m tbo living' 
piotuiv ? l\>os not tlio Now World olotbo bis form 
witb bor pahu-u'WYOs and siivamudis as tit dra- 
}H>vy? Ever does natural beauty steal in like 
air, and envelope s;ivat aetions. ^Vben Sir Harry 
A'atie was draggvd up tbe Tower-bill, sitting ou 



BEAUTY. 27 

u Hlf!(l, to HufP(;r i\('Axt\\ an the champion of tho P^ng- 
UhK lawH, oijf! of tlj<; multitude cried out to him, 
" You never Hate on ho ^IoHouh a Boat I" Cfiarlen 
II., to intimidat*} the eitizenH of London, cauHed 
tlie patriot Loid KusHell to be drawn in an open 
eo:u;h through th(; principal HtreetH of the city on 
iiis way to the Hcaffohl, " Jiut," his biographer 
HayH, "the multitud<; imagined they Haw liber-ty 
and virtiK! Hitting }>y hiH Hide." In private platen, 
among sordid obj<;ctH, an arrt; of truth or heroism 
HeeniH at once U) draw U) itHclf the nky as itn tem- 
ple, the Hun an itn candle. Nature Htretchen out her 
aiinH to embrace inaii, oidy let his thoughts be of 
equal greatncHH. Willingly does she follow his 
Ht<;pH with the rose and the viol(;t, and bend her 
lines of grandeur and giaxjc to the decoration of 
her darling child. Ordy let hin thoughtn be of 
e<pial scope, and the franu; will suit the picture. 
A virtuous man is in unison with her works, and 
makes th(; central figurt; of the visible sphere. 
Horner, I'indar, Socrates, Phocion, associate them- 
selves fitly in our memory with the geography and 
climate of Greece. The visible heavens and earth 
symijathize with Jesus. And in common life whoso- 
ever has seen a person of powerful character and 
happy genius, will have remarked how easily he 
took all things along with him, — the persons, the 
ojjinionH, and the day, and nature became ancillary 
to a man. 



28 BEAUTY. 

3. There is still anotlior aspect under which the 
beauty of the woilcl may be viewed, namely, as it 
becomes an object of the intellect. Beside the re- 
lation of things to virtue, they have a relation to 
thought. The intellect searches out the absolute 
order of things as they stand in the mind of God, 
and without the colors of affection. The intellectual 
and the active powers seem to succeed each other, 
and the exclusive activity of the one generates the 
exclusive activity of the other. There is something 
unfriendly in each to the other, but they are like 
the alternate periods of feeding- and working* in 
animals ; each prepares and will be followed by 
the other. Therefore does beauty, which, in re- 
lation to actions, as we have seen, comes unsought, 
and comes because it is unsought, remain for the 
apprehension and pursuit of the intellect ; and then 
again, in its turn, of the active power. Nothing- 
divine dies. All good is eternally reproductive. 
The beauty of nature re-forms itself in the mind, 
and not for barren contemplation, but for new cre- 
ation. 

All men are in some degree impressed by the 
face of the world ; some men even to delight. This 
love of beauty is Taste. Others have the same 
love in such excess, that, not content with admir- 
ing, they seek to embody it in new forms. The 
creation of beauty is Art. 



BEAUTY. 29 

The production of a work of art throws a light 
upon the mystery of humanity. A work of art is 
an abstract or epitome of the world. It is the 
result or expression of nature, in miniature. For 
although the works of nature are innumerable and 
all different, the result or the expression of them 
all is similar and single. Nature is a sea of forms 
radically alike and even unique. A leaf, a sun- 
beam, a landscape, the ocean, make an analogous 
impression on the mind. What is common to them 
all, — that perfectness and harmon}^, is beauty. 
The standard of beauty is the entire circuit of nat- 
ural forms, — the totality of nature ; whi(!h the 
Italians expressed by defining beauty "il piu nell' 
uno." Nothing is quite beautiful alone ; nothing 
but is beautiful in the whole. A single object is 
only so far beautiful as it suggests this universal 
grace. The poet, the painter, the sculj)tor, the 
musician, the architect, seek each to concentrate 
this radiance of the world on one point, and each 
in his several work to satisfy the love of beauty 
which stimulates him to produce. Thus is Art a 
nature passed through the alembic of man. Thus 
in art does Nature work through the will of a man 
filled with the beauty of her first works. 

The world thus exists to the soul to satisfy the 
desire of beauty. This element I call an ultimate 
end. No reason can be asked or given why the 



80 BEAUTY. 

soul sooks beauty. IVwuty, in its largost and ])r(>- 
fountlost acnso, is one expression for the iniiverse. 
God is the all-fail'. Ti'iilh, and g'oodness, and 
beauty, are but dilVei-ent faces of the same All. 
But beauty in nature is not ultimate. It is the 
herald of inward and eternal beauty, and is u(»t 
alone a solid and satisfaetory good. It must stand 
as ft part, and not as yet the last or highest exi)ros- 
siou of the linal cause of Nature. 



CHAPTER rv. 

LANGUAGE. 

Language i,s a tliinl use wliic!li Nature subserves 
to man. Nature is the vehicle of thouglit, and in 
a siinjjhj, doulde, and three-fold de^^ree. 

1. Words are signs of natural facts. 

2. Parti<!ular natural facts are synd>ols of par- 
ti(!ular spiritual facts. 

8. Nature is th(; symhol of spirit. 

1. Words arc signs of natural facts. The use 
of natural history is to give us aid in supernatural 
history ; th(} use of the outer creation, to give us 
language for the beings and changcis of the inward 
creation. Every word which is used to express 
a moral or int(!llc(;tu'al fact, if traced to its r<jot, 
is found to be borrowed from some material ap- 
pearance. ItifjJd means Htraujld ; vitoikj means 
twiHted. Spirit primarily means 'wind ; trans- 
gression, the crossing of a line ; super eilious, the 
raising of tJie eyehrow. We say the heart to ex- 
press emotion, the head to denote thought ; and 
thought and emotion are words bon-owed from 
sensible things, and now appropriated to spiritual 



82 LANGUAGE. 

nature. Most of the process l\v wliii-li tliis trans- 
formation is nuulo, is liidJen from us in t1u> re- 
mote tiuie when hiniiuaue was frauunl ; but the 
same tendenev may be daily observed in ehildnni. 
Chihiren and savages use only nouns or names of 
things, whieh they convert into verbs, and apply to 
analogous mental acts. 

2. Ihit this origin of all words that convey a 
spiritual import, — so conspicuous a fact in the his- 
tory of language, — is our least debt to nature. It 
is not words ouly that are emblematic ; it is thing's 
which are emblematic. Every natural fact is a 
symbol of some spiritual fact. Every appearance 
in nature corresponds to some state of the mind, 
and that state of the mind can mily be described 
by presenting tliat natural ai^jHrnrance as its pic- 
ture. An enraged man is a lion, a cunning man is 
a fox, a iirm man is a rock, a learned man is a 
torch. A lamb is innocence ; a snake is subtle 
spite ; flowei"s express to us the delicate affections. 
Light and darkness are our familiar expression for 
knowledge and iguorance ; and heat for love. Visi- 
ble distance behind and before us, is respectively 
OWY image of memory and hope. 

AVho looks upon a river in a meditative hour 
ai\d is not reminded of the flux of all things ? 
Throw a stone into the stream, aiul the circles that 
propag-ate themselves are the beautiful type of all 



LANGUAGE. 33 

influence. Man is conscious of a universal soul 
within or behind his individual life, wherein, as in 
a firmament, the natures of Justice, Truth, Love, 
Freedom, arise and shine. This universal soul 
he calls Keason : it is not mine, or thine, or his, 
but we are its ; we are its property and men. And 
the blue sky in which the private earth is buried, 
the sky with its eternal calm, and full of everlast- 
ing orbs, is the type of Reason. That which intel- 
lectually considered we call Reason, considered in 
relation to nature, we call Spirit. Spirit is the 
Creator. Spirit hath life in itself. And man in 
all ages and countries embodies it in his language 
as the Father. 

It is easily seen that there is nothing lucky or 
capricious in these analogies, \mt that they are 
constant, and pervade nature. These are not the 
dreanLs of a few poets, here and there, but man is 
an analogist, and studies relations in all objects. 
lie is placed in the centre of beings, and a ray of 
relation passes from every other being to him. 
And neither can man be understood without these 
objects, nor these objects without man. All the 
facts in natural history taken by themselves, have 
no value, but are barren, like a single sex. But 
marry it to human history, and it is full of life. 
Whole floras, all Linnaius' and Buffon's volumes, 
are dry catalogues of facts ; but the most trivial of 

VOL. I. 3 



34 LANGUAGE. 

these facts, the habit of a plant, the organs, or 
work, or noise of an insect, applied to the illustra- 
tion of a fact in intellectual philosophy, or in any- 
way associated to human nature, affects us in the 
most lively and agreeable manner. The seed of a 
plant, — to what affecting analogies in the nature 
of man is that little fruit made use of, in all dis- 
course, up to the voice of Paul, who calls the hu- 
man corpse a seed, — "It is sown a natural body ; 
it is raised a spiritual body." The motion of the 
earth round its axis and round the sun, makes the 
day and the year. These are certain amounts of 
brute light and heat. But is there no intent of an 
analogy between man's life and the seasons? And 
do the seasons gain no grandeur or pathos from 
that analogy? The instincts of the ant are very 
unimportant considered as the ant's ; but the mo- 
ment a ray of relation is seen to extend from it to 
man, and the little drudge is seen to be a monitor, 
a little body with a mighty heart, then all its hab- 
its, even that said to be recently observed, that it 
never sleeps, become sublime. 

Because of this radical correspondence between 
visible things and human thoughts, savages, who 
have only what is necessary, converse in figures. 
As we go back in history, language becomes more 
picturesque, until its infancy, when it is all poetry ; 
or all spiritual facts are represented by natural 



LANGUAGE. 35 

symbols. The same symbols are found to make 
the original elements of all languages. It has 
moreover been observed, that the idioms of all 
languages approach each other in passages of the 
greatest eloquence and power. And as this is the 
first language, so is it the last. This immediate 
dependence of language uj)on nature, this conver- 
sion of an outward phenomenon into a type of 
somewhat in human life, never loses its power to 
affect us. It is this which gives that piquancy to 
the conversation of a strong-natured farmer or 
backwoodsman, which all men relish. 

A man's power to connect his thought with its 
proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the 
simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love 
of truth and his desire to conununicate it without 
loss. The corruption of man is followed by the cor- 
ruption of language. When simplicity of character 
and the sovereignty of ideas is broken up by the 
prevalence of secondary desires, the desire of riches, 
of pleasure, of power, and of praise, — and duplic- 
ity and falsehood take place of simplicity and truth, 
the power over nature as an interpreter of the will 
is in a degree lost ; new imagery ceases to be cre- 
ated, and old words are perverted to stand for things 
which are not ; a paper currency is employed, when 
there is no bullion in the vaults. In due time the 
fraud is manifest, and words lose all power to stim- 



36 LANGUAGE. 

iilate the imderstanding or the affections. Hun- 
ilrecls of writers may be found in every long-civilized 
nation who for a short time believe and make others 
believe that they see and utter truths, who do not 
of themselves clothe one thought in its natural gar- 
ment, but who feed unconsciously on the langiiage 
created by the primary wi'iters of the country, those, 
namely, who hold primarily on nature. 

But wise men pierce this rotten diction and 
fasten words again to visible things ; so that pictur- 
esque langiiage is at once a commanding certificate 
that he who employs it is a man in alliance with 
truth and God. The moment our discourse rises 
above the ground line of familiar facts and is in- 
flamed with passion or exalted by thought, it clothes 
itself m images. A man conversing in earnest, if 
he watch his intellectual processes, will find that a 
material image more or less luminous arises in his 
mind, contemporaneous with every thought, which 
f lu-nishes the vestment of the thought. Hence, good 
WT-iting and brilliant discourse are perpetual alle- 
gories. This imagery is spontaneous. It is the 
blending of experience with the present action of 
the mind. It is proper creation. It is the work- 
ing of the Origmal Cause through the instrvmients 
he has already made. 

These facts may suggest the advantage which the 
country-life possesses, for a powerful mind, over the 



LANGUAGE. 37 

artificial and curtailed life of cities. We know 
more from nature than we can at will communicate. 
Its light flows into the mind evermore, and we for- 
get its presence. The poet, the orator, bred in the 
woods, whose senses have been nourished by their 
fair and appeasing changes, year after year, with- 
out design and without heed, — shall not lose their 
lesson altogether, in the roar of cities or the broil 
of politics. Long hereafter, amidst agitation and 
terror in national councils, — in the hour of revolu- 
tion, — these solemn images shall reappear in their 
morning lustre, as fit symbols and words of the 
thoughts which the passing events shall awaken. 
At the call of a noble sentiment, again the woods 
wave, the pines murmur, the river rolls and shines, 
and the cattle low upon the mountains, as he saw 
and heard them in his infancy. And with these 
forms, the spells of persuasion, the keys of power 
are put into his hands. 

3. We are thus assisted by natural objects in the 
expression of particular meanings. But how great 
a language to convey such pepper-corn informations ! 
Did it need such noble races of creatures, this pro- 
fusion of forms, this host of orbs in heaven, to fur- 
nish man with the dictionary and grammar of his 
municipal speech ? Whilst we use this grand cipher 
to expedite the affairs of our pot and kettle, we feel 
that we have not yet put it to its use, neither are 



38 LANGUAGE. 

able. We are like travellers using the cinders of 
a volcano to roast their eggs. Whilst we see that 
it always stands ready to clothe what we would say, 
we cannot avoid the question whether the charac- 
ters are not significant of themselves. Have moim- 
tains, and waves, and skies, no significance but what 
we consciously give them when we employ them as 
emblems of our thoughts ? The world is emblem- 
atic. Parts of speech are metaphors, because the 
whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind. 
The laws of moral nature answer to those of mat- 
ter as face to face in a glass. " The visible world 
and the relation of its parts, is the dial plate of the 
invisible." The axioms of physics translate the 
laws of ethics. Thus, " the whole is greater than its 
part \ " " reaction is equal to action ; " " the small- 
est weight may be made to lift the greatest, the dif- 
ference of weight being compensated by time ; " and 
many the like propositions, which have an ethical as 
well as physical sense. These propositions have a 
much more extensive and universal sense when ap- 
plied to human life, than when confined to techni- 
cal use. 

In like manner, the memorable words of history 
and the proverbs of nations consist usually of a 
natural fact, selected as a picture or parable of a 
moral truth. Thus ; A rolling stone gathers no 
moss ; A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush ; 



LANGUAGE. 39 

A cripple in the right way will beat a racer in the 
wrong ; Make hay while the sun shines ; 'T is hard 
to carry a full cup even ; Vinegar is the son of 
wine ; The last ounce broke the camel's back ; 
Long-lived trees make roots first ; — and the like. 
In their primary sense these are trivial facts, but 
we repeat them for the value of their analogical 
import. What is true of proverbs, is true of all 
fables, parables, and allegories. 

This relation between the mind and matter is 
not fancied by some poet, but stands in the will of 
God, and so is free to be known by all men. It 
appears to men, or it does not appear. When in 
fortunate hours we ponder this miracle, the wise 
man doubts if at all other tunes he is not blind and 
deaf : 

" Can these things be, 

And overcome us like a summer's cloud, 

Without our special wonder ? " 

for the universe becomes transparent, and the light 
of higher laws than its own shines through it. It is 
the standing problem which has exercised the won- 
der and the study of every fine genius since the 
world began ; from the era of the Egyptians and 
the Brahmins to that of Pythagoras, of Plato, of 
Bacon, of Leibnitz, of Swedenborg. There sits the 
Sphinx at the road-side, and from age to age, as 
each prophet comes by, he tries his fortune at read- 



40 LANGUAGE. 

ing- her riddle. There seems to be a necessity in 
si)irit to manifest itself in material forms ; and day 
and night, river and storm, beast and bird, acid 
and alkali, preexist in necessary Ideas in the mind 
of God, and are what they are by virtue of pre- 
ceding affections in the world of spirit. A Fact is 
the end or last issue of spirit. The visible creation 
is the terminus or the circumference of the invisi- 
ble world. "Material objects," said a French 
philosopher, " are necessarily kinds of scorim of 
the substantial thoughts of the Creator, which must 
always preserve an exact relation to their first 
origin ; in other words, visible nature must have a 
spiritual and moral side." 

This doctrine is abstruse, and though the im- 
ages of " garment," " scoriie," " mirror," &c., may 
stimulate the fancy, we must summon the aid of 
subtler and more vital expositors to make it plain. 
" Every scripture is to be interpreted by the same 
spirit which gave it forth," — is the fundamental 
law of criticism. A life in harmony with Nature, 
the love of tiuth and of virtue, will purge the eyes 
to understand her text. By degrees we may come 
to know the primitive sense of the permanent ob- 
jects of nature, so that the world shall be to us an 
open book, and every form significant of its hidden 
life and final cause. 

A new interest surprises us, whilst, under the 



LANGUAGE. 41 

view now suggested, we contemplate the fearful 
extent and multitude of objects ; since " every ob- 
ject rightly seen, unlocks a new facidty of the soul." 
That which was unconscious truth, becomes, when 
interpreted and defined in an object, a part of the 
domain of knowledge, — a new weapon in the mag- 
azine of power. 



CHAPTER V. 

DISCIPLINE. 

In view of the si^nifii'ance of nature, we arrive 
at once at a new fact, that nature is a discipline. 
This use of the worhl inehidos the preceding uses, 
as parts of itself. 

Space, time, society, labor, climate, food, locomo- 
tion, the animals, the mechanical forces, give us 
sincerest lessons, day by day, whose meaning is un- 
limited. They educate both the Understanding 
and the Reason. Every property of matter is a 
school for the luulerstanding, — its solidity or i*e- 
sistance, its inertia, its extension, its figure, its di- 
visibility. The luulerstanding adds, divides, com- 
bines, measures, and finds nutriment and room for 
its activity in this worthy scene. Meantime, Rea- 
son transfers all these lessons into its own world of 
thought, by perceiving the analogy that marries 
Matter and Mind. 

1. Nature is a discipline of the understanding in 
intellectual truths. Our dcaliuo- -with sensible ob- 
jects is a constant exeivise in the necessary lessons 
of difference, of likeness, of order, of being and 



DISCIPLINE. 43 

seeming, of progressive arrangement ; of ascent 
from particular to general ; of combination to one 
end of manifold forces. Proportioned to the impor- 
tance of the organ to be formed, is the extreme care 
with which its tuition is provided, — a care preter- 
mitted in no single case. What tedious training, day 
after day, year after year, never ending, to form 
the common sense ; what continual reproduction of 
annoyances, inconveniences, dilemmas ; what rejoic- 
ing over us of little men ; what disputing of prices, 
what reckonings of interest, — and all to form the 
Hand of the mind ; — to instruct us that " good 
thoughts are no Ijctter than good dreams, unless 
they be executed ! " 

The same good office is performed by Property 
and its filial systems of del)t and credit. Debt, 
grinding debt, whose iron face the widow, the or- 
phan, and the sons of genius fear and hate ; — 
debt, which consumes so much time, which so crip- 
ples and disheartens a great spirit with cares that 
seem so base, is a preceptor whose lessons cannot 
be forgone, and is needed .most by those who suf- 
fer from it most. Moreover, property, which has 
been well compared to snow, — " if it fall level to- 
day, it will be blown into drifts to-morrow," — is 
the surface action of internal machinery, like the 
index on the face of a clock. Whilst now it is the 
gymnastics of the understanding, it is hiving, in 



44 DISCIPLINE. 

the foresight of the spirit, experience in profounder 
laws. 

The whole character and fortune of the individ- 
ual are affected by the least inequalities in the 
culture of the understandino- ; for example, in the 
perception of differences. Therefore is Space, and 
therefore Time, that man may know that things 
ai*e not huddled and lum})ed, but sundered and 
individual. A bell and a plough have each their 
use, and neither can do the office of the other. 
Water is good to drink, coal to burn, wool to wear ; 
but wool cannot be drunk, nor water spun, nor coal 
eaten. The wise man shows his wisdom in separa- 
tion, in gradation, and his scale of creatures and of 
merits is as wide as nature. The foolish have no 
range in their scale, but suppose every man is as 
every other man. What is not good they call the 
worst, and what is not hateful, they call the best. 

In like manner, what good heed Nature forms 
in us ! She pardons no mistakes. Her yea is yea, 
and her nay, nay. 

The first steps in Agriculture, Astronomy, Zo- 
ology (those first steps which the farmer, the 
hunter, and the sailor take), teach that Nature's 
dice are always loaded ; that in her heaps and rub- 
bish are concealed sure and useful results. 

How calmly and genially the mind apprehends 
one after another the laws of physics ! What 



DISCIPLINE. 45 

noble emotions dilate the mortal as he enters into 
the counsels of the creation, and feels by knowl- 
edge the privilege to Be ! His insight refines him. 
The beauty of nature shines in his own breast. 
Man is greater that he can see this, and the uni- 
verse less, because Time and Space relations vanish 
as laws are known. 

Here again we are impressed and even daunted 
by the immense Universe to be explored. " What 
we know is a point to what we do not know." 
Open any recent journal of science, and weigh the 
problems suggested concerning Light, Heat, Elec- 
tricity, Magnetism, Physiology, Geology, and judge 
whether the interest of natural science is likely to 
be soon exhausted. 

Passing by many particulars of the discipline of 
nature, we must not omit to specify two. 

The exercise of the Will, or the lesson of power, 
is taught in every event. From the child's succes- 
sive possession of his several senses up to the hour 
when he saith, " Thy will be done ! " he is learn- 
ing the secret that he can reduce under his will, 
not only particular events but great classes, nay, 
the whole series of events, and so conform all facts 
to his character. Nature is thoroughly mediate. 
It is made to serve. It receives the dominion of 
man as meekly as the ass on which the Saviour 
rode. It offers all its kingdoms to man as the 



40 niscirr.iXE. 

raw luatorial which ho may inouUl ii\ti> what is nst^ 
fill. Man is novor woarv i>t' workiiiii' it up. Wo 
fivrovs tho subtilo aiul ilolicato air into wiso and 
niohHlions nyoihIs, ami irivos them wiiiLr as an<;vls of 
porsnasion and I'onnnand. C^no after aimthor liis 
viotorii>ns thonu'lil I'oinos n]> with ami roiliu'os all 
thin^-s, until tho wi>rUl boooinos at last only a real- 
i/oil will. — tho ilonhlo of tho man. 

il. Sonsiblo ol>joots oont\>rin to tho }>romonitions 
of Koason ami rotloot tho oouvsoionoo. AU thini;s 
nro moral: and in thoir lunindloss ohangos have an 
iinooasiiig" roforonoo to spiritual natnro. Thorofore 
is iiaturo jilorions with form, oolor, ami motion ; 
that OYorv ^lobo in tho romotost hoavon, ovory 
ohomioal ohaniio from tho rudost orvstal up to tho 
laws of life, ovorv ohanuo of vouotation from tlio 
first principle of jirowth in tho eye of a loaf, to the 
tivpieal foivst and antodiluviaii eoal-mino. ovorv 
animal fimotion fiiMU tho sponjio up to lloronlos, 
shall hint or thnndor to uuin tho laws of riuht and 
wrong-, and ooho tho Ton C\nninandinonts. Thoro- 
fore is Naruvo over tlio ally of Koligion : lends all 
hor pomp auvl rli'hos to the religious sontimont. 
Pi\>phot and priest. David, Isaiah, dosus, have 
drawn ileoply fnnn this souive. This othioal ohar- 
aetor so pouetrates the bone and marrow of nature, 
as to seem the end for which it was made. ^^ hat- 
evor private purpose is aiisworevl by any member 



DISCIPLINE. 47 

or part, thiti i« itn public and universal fun<^:tion, 
and i.H never omitte<l. Nothing in nature in ex- 
hauHteil in it» first use. When a thing has starved 
an end to the uttennost, it is wholly new for an 
ulterior servuMi. In <^/0(l, every end is converted 
into a new means. Thus the use of c^^jmrnodity, 
regarded by itself, is mean and squalid. But it 
is to the mind an education in the doctrine of Lsc, 
namely, that a thing is gofxl only iV) far as it serves; 
that a conspiring of parts and efforts \/) the prf>- 
duetion of an end is essential ijo any being. The 
first and gross manifestation of this truth is our 
inrjvitable and hated training in values and wants, 
in com and meat. 

It has already been illustrated, that every nat- 
ural process is a version of a moral sent^^nce. The 
moral law lies at the centre of nature and radiates 
to the circumference. It is the pith and marrow 
of every substance, every relation, and every pro- 
cess. All things with which we deal, prea^^h if) us. 
What is a farm but a mutfi gospel? TTie chaff 
and the wheat, weeds and plants, blight, rain, in- 
sects, sun, — it is a sacred emblem from the first 
furrow of spring to the last stack which the snow 
of wint^ir over-takes in the fields. But the sailor, 
the shepherd, the miner, the merchant, in their 
several resorts, have each an experience precisely 
parallel, and leading to the same conclusion : be- 



4S nii<cii'i.i\K. 

cnuso all ornnnizations aiv radically allko. Nor 
v:u\ it hv »U)uhtv»l that this moral sontimont wlilrli 
tluis scouts tlu> air, j^rows in tho i;rain, ami iiujuvj;- 
uatos tho waters ol" (ho woi UK is caught by man 
ami sinks iuti) his soul. Tho moral inthionoo of 
nature uiH>n oviM-y imliviihial is that amount of 
truth which it iUustratos to him. \\'ho can osti- 
UKito this? Who can liucss how much tirmiu'ss 
tho soa-hoaton rock has taught tho llshorman ? how 
much tranciuillity has been rcthH'toil io n»au from 
the a/nri> sky, over whose uuspottotl iloops the 
wimls t'orovormoro drive th)i"ks of stormy olouils, 
and leave no wrinkle «>r stain? how nnich indus- 
try and in-ovi»lenco and atVoi'tion we have i'ani;ht 
from tho }>antominu' of brutes? \\ hat a soarching" 
l)roachor of self-command is the varyiny," i)houome- 
lum of Health! 

Herein is os]HHMally upprohondod the unity of 
Jsaturo, — tho unity in variotv, — which moots ns 
overvwhoro. All the endless variotv of tlun^s 
make an identical impression. Xenophanos oom- 
jdainod in his old aiiO. that, look whore he woidd, 
all tliluiis hastened back to Unity. Ho was woary 
of soeiuii" tho same entity in the tedious variety of 
fi>rms. The fabl(> of Protons has a cordial truth. 
A leaf, a drop, a crystal, a nuuuont of time, is i-e- 
latod to tht^ whole, and partakes of tho perfection 
of tho whole. Kach jKirtiele is a microcosm, and 
faithfully renders the likeness of the world. 



DISCII'/JXE. 49 

Not only reseml>lanccs exist in things whose an- 
alogy \H obviouH, as when we detect the tyi)e of the 
human hand in the flipper of the fossil saurus, but 
also in objects wherein there is great supei-flcial 
unlikeness. Thus architecture is culled "frozen 
music," by D(; Staiil and Goethe. Vitruvius 
thought an a7'chitect should be a musician. "A 
Gothic chuich," said Coleridge, "is a petrified re- 
ligion." Michatd Angelo maintained, that, to an 
architect, a knowledge of anatomy is essential. In 
Haydn's oratoiios, the notes present to the imagi- 
nation not only motions, as of the snake, the stag, 
and the elephant, but colors also ; as the green 
grass. TIio law of harmonic sounds reappears in 
the harmonic colors. The granite is differenced in 
its laws only by the more or less of heat from the 
river that wears it away. The river, as it flows, 
resembles the air that flows over it ; the air resem- 
Ides the light which traverses it with more subtile 
currents ; the light resembles the heat which rides 
with it through Space. Each creature is only a 
modification of the other ; the likeness in them is 
more than the differen(je, and their radical law is 
one and the same. A rule of one art, or a law of 
one organization, holds true throughout nature. 
So intimate is this Unity, that, it is easily seen, it 
lies under the undermost garment of nature, and 
betrays its source in Universal Spirit. For it per- 

VOL. I. 4 



50 DISCI ri.i.xF. 

v:ulos ThouLiht nlsi>. Kvorv nnivorsal trutli Avliii'li 
wo oxpivss in \Yt>rils, iiuplios or snpp(isos ovory 
other truth. Ofunc rcnon vera rontionat. It is 
like a groat oiroh> on a s[>horo, I'omprisiiig all pos- 
sil>h» oirolos : whioh, howovor, may bo ilrawn ami 
oomprise it in lilco uiannor. Evorv suoh truth is 
tlie absohito Kus soon from ouo siih\ But it has 
iuniuuorahlo sidos. 

Tho oontral Unity is still nun*o oousjiiouous in 
aotious. AVorcls aro iiuilo tu-gans of tho iniinito 
miml. Thov oannot oovor tho dinionsions of wliat 
is in truth. Thoy broak, oliop, and inipovorish it. 
An aotion is tlio })orfootiou ami publii'ation of 
thought. A right aotion sooms to till tho eye, and 
to bo rolatod lo all naturo. "Tho wise man, in 
doiuii' ouo thinn", does all : or, in tho ono thing ho 
does riglitly, ho soos tho likonoss of all whioh is 
dono rightly." 

"Words and aotions are not tho attributes of 
brute naturo. Thov introduoo us to the human 
form, of whioh all other organizations appear to 
bo degradations. AVhon this appears among so 
many that surround it. the spirit pivfors it to all 
others. It says, " From suoh as this have I drawn 
joy and knowledge : in suoh as this have 1 found 
and behold myself : 1 \\ill speak to it : it oan speak 
auain : it I'an viold me thonsiht alroadv formed and 
alive." In faot, tho eve, — tho mind, — is alwavs 



DISCIPLINE. 51 

accompanied Ly these forrnn, male and female ; and 
these are incomparably the richest infoi-mation.s of 
the power and order that lie at the heart of things. 
Unfortunately every one of them bears the marks 
as of some injury ; is marred and superficially de- 
fective. Nevertheless, far different from the deaf 
and dumb nature around them, these all rest like 
fountain-pipes on the unfathomed sea of thought 
and virtue wheret^> they alone, of all organizations, 
arc the entranc^es. 

It were a pleasant inquiry to follow into detail 
their ministry to our education, but where would it 
stoj) ? We are associated in a^lolescent and adult 
life with some friends, who, like skies and wat^^rs, 
are coext<;nsive with our idea ; who, answering 
each to a certain affection of the soul, satisfy our 
desire on that side ; whom we lack power to put at 
such focal distance from us., that we can mend or 
even analyze them. We cannot choose but love 
them. AV'hcn much intercourse with a friend has 
supplied us with a standard of excellence, and has 
increased our respect for the resources of God who 
thus sends a real person to outgo our ideal ; when 
he has, moreover, become an object of thought, 
and, whilst his character retains all its unconscioas 
effect, is converted in the mind into solid and sweet 
wisdom, — it is a sign to us that his office is clos- 
ing, and he is commonly withdrawn from our sight 
in a short time. 



CHAPTER VI. 

IDEALISM. 

Thus is tlie unspeakable but intelligible and 
practicable meaning of the world conveyed to man, 
the immortal pupil, in every object of sense. To 
this one end of Discipline, all parts of nature con- 
spire. 

A noble doubt perpetually suggests itself, — 
whether this end be not the Final Cause of the 
Universe ; and whether nature outwardly exists. 
It is a sufficient account of that Appearance we call 
the World, that God will teach a human mind, and 
so makes it the receiver of a certain number of con- 
gruent sensations, which we call sim and moon, 
man and woman, house and trade. In my utter 
impotence to test the authenticity of the report of 
my senses, to know whether the impressions they 
make on me correspond with outlying objects, 
what difference does it make, whether Orion is 
ujD there in heaven, or some god paints tjie image 
in the firmament of the soul? The relations of 
parts and the end of the whole remaining the same, 
what is the difference, whether land and sea inter- 



IDEALISM. 53 

act, and worlds revolve and intermingle without 
number or end, — deep yawning under deep, 
and galaxy balancing galaxy, throughout absolute 
space, — or whether, without relations of time 
and space, the same appearances are inscribed in 
the constant faith of man? Whether nature en- 
joy a substantial existence without, or is only in 
the apocalypse of the mind, it is alike useful and 
alike venerable to me. Be it what it may, it is 
ideal to me so long as I cannot try the accuracy of 
my senses. 

The frivolous make themselves merry with the 
Ideal theory, as if its consequences were burlesque ; 
as if it affected the stability of natui*e. It surely 
does not. God never jests with us, and will not 
compromise the end of nature by permitting any 
inconsequence in its procession. Any distrust of 
the permanence of laws would paralyze the facul- 
ties of man. Their permanence is sacredly re- 
spected, and his faith therein is perfect. The 
wheels and springs of man are all set to the hy- 
pothesis of the permanence of nature. We are not 
built like a ship to be tossed, but like a house to 
stand. It is a natural consequence of this struc- 
ture, that so long as the active powers predominate 
over the reflective, we resist with indignation any 
hint that nature is more short-lived or mutable 
than spirit. The broker, the wheelwi'ight, the car- 



54 IDEALISM. 

penter, the tollman, are much displeased at the in- 
timation. 

But whilst we acquiesce entirely in the perma- 
nence of natural laws, the question of the absolute 
existence of nature still remains open. It is the 
uniform effect of culture on the human mind, not 
to shake our faith in the stability of particular phe- 
nomena, as of heat, water, azote ; but to lead us to 
regard nature as phenomenon, not a substance ; to 
attribute necessary existence to spirit; to esteem 
nature as an accident and an effect. 

To the senses and the unrenewed understanding, 
belongs a sort of instinctive belief in the absolute 
existence of nature. In their view man and nature 
are indissolubly joined. Things are ultinlates, and 
they never look beyond their sphere. The pres- 
ence of Reason mars this faith. The first effort of 
thought tends to relax this despotism of the senses 
which binds us to nature as if we were a part of it, 
and shows us nature aloof, and, as it were, afloat. 
Until this higher agency intervened, the animal 
eye sees, with wonderful accuracy, sharp outlines 
and colored surfaces. When the eye of Reason 
opens, to outline and surface are at once added 
grace and expression. These proceed from imagi- 
nation and affection, and abate somewhat of the 
angular distinctness of objects. If the Reason be 
stimulated to more earnest vision, outlines and sur- 



IDEALISM. 55 

faces become transparent, and are no longer seen ; 
causes and spirits are seen through them. The 
best moments of life are these delicious awakenines 
of the higher powers, and the reverential withdraw- 
ing of nature before its God. 

Let us proceed to indicate the effects of culture. 
1. Our first institution in the Ideal philosophy is a 
hint from Nature herself. 

Nature is made to conspire with spirit to eman- 
cipate us. Certain mechanical changes, a small al- 
teration in our local position, a}?j)rizes us of a dual- 
ism. We are strangely affected by seeing the shore 
from a moving ship, from a balloon, or through the 
tints of an unusual sky. The least change in our 
point of view gives the whole world a pictorial air. 
A man who seldom rides, needs only to get into a 
coach and traverse his own town, to turn the street 
into a puppet-show. The men, the women, — tally- 
ing, running, bartermg, fighting, — the earnest me- 
chanic, the lounger, the beggar, the boys, the dogs, 
are unrealized at once, or, at least, wholly detached 
from all relation to the observer, and seen as ap- 
parent, not substantial beings. What new thoughts 
are suggested by seeing a face of country quite fa- 
miliar, in the rapid movement of the railroad car ! 
Nay, the most wonted objects, (make a very slight 
change in the point of vision,) please us most. In 
a camera obscura, the butcher's cart, and the figure 



56 IDEALISM. 

of one of our own family amnse us. So a portrait 
of a well-known face gratifies us. Turn the eyes 
upside down, by looking at the landscape through 
your legs, and how agreeable is the picture, though 
you have seen it any time these twenty years ! 

In these cases, by mechanical means, is suggested 
the difference between the observer and the specta- 
cle, — between man and nature. Hence arises a 
pleasure mixed with awe ; I may say, a low degree 
of the sublime is felt, from the fact, probably, that 
man is hereby apprized that whilst the world is a 
sjoectacle, something in himself is stable. 

2. In a higher manner the poet communicates the 
same pleasure. By a few strokes he delineates, as 
on air, the sun, the mountain, the camp, the city, 
the hero, the maiden, not different from what we 
know them, but only lifted from the ground and 
afloat before the eye. He unfixes the land and the 
sea, makes them revolve around the axis of his pri- 
mary thought, and disposes them anew. Possessed 
himself by a heroic passion, he uses matter as sym- 
bols of it. The sensual man conforms thoughts to 
things ; the poet conforms things to his thoughts. 
The one esteems nature as rooted and fast ; the 
other, as fluid, and impresses his being thereon. 
To hmi, the refractory world is ductile and flexi- 
ble ; he invests dust and stones with humanity, and 
makes them the words of the Reason. The Imagi- 



IDEALISM. 57 

nation may be defined to be the use which the Rea- 
son makes of the material workl. Shakspeare 
possesses the power of subordinating nature for the 
l^urposes of expression, beyond all poets. His im- 
perial muse tosses the creation like a bauble from 
hand to hand, and uses it to embody any caprice of 
thought that is upjiermost in his mind. The remo- 
test spaces of nature are visited, and the farthest 
siuidered things are brought together, by a sub- 
tile spiritual connection. We are made aware that 
magnitude of material things is relative, and all ob- 
jects shrink and expand to serve the passion of the 
poet. Thus in his sonnets, the lays of birds, the 
scents and dyes of flowers he finds to be the shadow 
of his beloved ; time, which keeps her from him, is 
his chest ; the suspicion she has awakened, is her 
ornament; 

The ornament of beauty is Suspect, 

A crow wliich flies in heaven's sweetest air. 

His passion is not the fruit of chance ; it swells, 
as he sjjeaks, to a city, or a state. 

No, it was buOded far from accident; 

It sufl'ers not in smilmg pomp, nor falls 

Under the brow of thralluig discontent; 

It fears not policy, that heretic. 

That works on leases of short numbered hours, 

But all alone stands hugely politic. 

In the strength of his constancy, the Pyramids 



r)S IDKAl.lSM. 

sc(M\i to liim iwont ami transitory. Tlio froshness 

of Youtli ami lovo ila//.los him with its rosembhuu'O 

to laoruing' ; 

Tako tUoso lips jiwnv 
Wliii'h so swootly woiv foi-sworn; 
Ami thoso »\vos, — the biviik t>f day, 
l.ijihts that ilo misloiul tho morn. 

Tho wihl hoautv of this hyporbolo, 1 may say in 
jnissiuj;-, it wmihl ni>t bo oasy to matoh in litoratnit*. 
This transtiti"nratii>n whii-h all material objoots 
\uulorgo thronu'h tho passion of tho poet, — this 
pi^wor which ho oxorts to ilwarf tho groat, to mag- 
nify tho small, — niiiiht bo illustratotl bv a thoiisaml 
oxam}ilos from his Plays. 1 have before me the 
Tempest, ami will eite only these few linos. 

A JUKI,. Tho strung- Iwsed pnnnoutory 

Have I mado s^liako, and l>y the spin's plucked up 
The pine mul eedar. 

Pivspen> oalls for mnsie to soothe the frantic 
Alonzo, ami his oompanions : 

A solemn air. and the best oonit'ortor 
To an unsettled t'aney. eniv thy Inains 
Kow useless, boiled within thv skull. 



Aiitiin ; 



The ehavni dissivlves ajvj^oe. 
And, as the n\orniug steals upon the night, 
Meltinjj the darkness, so their rising senses 



IDEALISM. .09 

Hcpin to fthjiBO the iffnoiaHt fumcH tJiat mantle 
Tlicir (!l«;arf!r reaKoii, 

'I'licir iindorstandifi;;^ 
I'tf^Iirj to Kvvftll: ami tfi<; ai)j»roacliiti^ tide 
Will (iliortly fill tli<; rcaHoiisildo kIioi-ch 
'lliul, MOW lie, foul and iiiiiddy. 

Th(5 j)crc(;j)tiori of rcul affinities l)etwecn evftntH 
Ctliat itt to Hay, of *(/««/ affiiiitioH, for thoHO only are 
icalj, <;na})lcH tlu; poet thus to make fi-oc with tho 
most irnjjoHin;^- forms and phenom(;na of the world, 
and to assei-t the j)re(loniinanf;o of the soul. 

?>. Whilst thus the poet animates nature with his 
own thoughts, he diffcirs from the philosopher only 
herein, that the one; pioposes B(;auty as his main 
cjkI ; the other Trutli. Jiut the philosop]i(!r, not 
l(iss than the poet, jjostpones the apparent order 
and relations of things to the (;m])ire of thought. 
" The proldem of j)hih>sophy," acjcording to i^lato, 
"is, Utv all that exists eonditionally, to find a 
groinid un(;on(lition(!d and absolute." It proeeeds 
on th(i faith that a law determines all plumomena, 
whieh })eing known, the phenomena ean hepredieted. 
1'hat law, wh(!n in the mind, is an idea. Its beauty 
is infinite. The true phi]oso]>her and the time poet 
ai<; one, and a beauty, whieh is truth, and a 
truth, whieh is beauty, is the aim of l)oth. Is not 
tJn! eliarm of one of Plato's or Aristotle's definitions 
strictly like that of the Antigone of Soplioeles ? It 



00 inKAUSM, 

is, in \>oth onsos, that Ji spiritnnl lifo has 1>«hm\ im- 
\vivtovl (v> U5>t»nv; th:\t {\\o solitl so»*u\lMi;; Mook of 
\»\;Utov hj>s boon jH^rvmltHl aiul «lissolvo»l l\v n 
tl\v»U);ht I thut this 1\h^Mo hiunau boiuij has {>o»\ot ratinl 
tho vast uvjissosof uatmx^ with an iutonuiuii' st»ul, aiul 
UHH>j;»vijnHl itsolt" in th«Mv hariuonv. that is, soi^tnl 
tluMi' law, \\\ phvsiv's, whou this is attainoih tho 
mouioiY vHshuvthons itsolt' »<t" its ouu\hi\n»s oatu- 
K\iiuos of j>^u*tio»»laiN, anil oarrios ivntmios i^f ohsoi^- 
vntion in a six^ijlo fonnnh*. 

Thus o\«n in jOivsios, tho tnatorial is doiiTaiUnl 
IvfvMV tho spiritnal. Tho ast»>M\o»nov, tho iivom- 
otov. \>^ly on thoiv invfvap\UK^ analysis, aiul ilis- 
ilai»\ tho wsuhs of i^lvsovvatioti. Tho snhlinio n^ 
n>avk of Knhn* on his h>w i»f a»\'hos, "This will ho 
i\>unil vHUitrarv to all ovporiomv, vot is (ruo : " hail 
ahvailv tiunsfonxnl natmv into tho iniu^l. anil loft, 
tnattor liko at\ outonst iw^vso. 

t. lutolhvtnal soiomv has Ihvu oKsorvinl to Iviivt 
itivariahlv a iloivht t>f thooxistonw of »\iattov. Txu^- 
^4jv>t sjvivl. *• Wo that has novor iloubttnl tho oxistoiut) 
tvf iMHttor, ntav Iv assnixnl ho has uv> aptituvlo for 
nvota^^hvsioal ini^uiri^^" It fastons tho attention 
n^iMi in\nivvi>tal xuHHvssarv ntioivattnl natnivs, that is, 
upon KU\»s ; a\ul in thoiv jvixv^oniv wo fiH I that tho 
ontwawl oiivvnust;uuv is a vlivani anvl a shavlo. 
AVhilst wo wait in this Olviupns of ^xhIs, wo think 
of nituiiv t»j4 ju\ aj^jH^mlix tv^ tho s\nil. Wo aj»ivnil 



IfjIlA/JHM. (',] 

inf/> \.\ic'\r rc'/ioit, and know fli^tfc tfi<^< ar^j ilia 
thon'^htM of Ui<; Suj>r<^fri/i IWnt'^. " 'VUctm 'dm 
iUcy w\nt wm'<i md u|> from cvat'lmdut'f^, from tUa 
\)('.')j^'iitti'ni'/, or avitr tfi/j i^r-tlj w{;w. Wh/;n ltd \>r(> 
It'di't'A ihti \fUiU.V('.tm, i\nty wcrt', th';r'<; ; wh<m Im t^n- 
\:.i.\>\h\nA \.)u; <;UfmiHii\n>V(',, v/Ut'.n ltd HU'Cty^lmtuui tiia 
foufjfainx of Ui<; <l<'^^p, 'I'iidti ilwy wdt'h J>y him, a» 
on<; \ir<)H'^)ii lip wiUyhiin, <^>f th<;m tx>^>k h/; r^^ua- 

T\ti-Af \iA\\n:ui'Ai hi \irtf])t,fiAtiUiiUi. An <>)>yMnof 
mu'MCA', i\\i'.y urn wuwmaWA': \/> f<;v/ un-.n. Ytd all 
/f»<;n art', caj^ahJij of Jx^inj^ rnt6t'A by pi^^ty or by [^a*- 
Hiofj, int/> tb/;ir rt'/^'iott. An<l no ntaa i/tuchdn iUcMi 
'livin<; uatim'M, witfioiit SutfA^uut'^, m norm; dc/^rcji^ 
\iiiiim:\f <\ivitt(i. \j\\n'. a n<;w H'iul, t,br?y ri^n/iW tb/j 
bfi/ly. VV<; \Kif/Hft(i \)\iyh'u'.'d\\y u\ui\)\n an/1 li^ljfc- 
HotiKi ; we. tr<^,u\ on air; Iif«i w no hni'^cr \r\ov>u\f',^ 
and w<; tbink it will uhwar Im no. \o man ftmrH 
H'/ii or iii'inforfAnut (tr (Umilt in tl*»?ir ¥Atr<m(t (•j(mi\M.uy^ 
for b/; m tranH|)oH>'<l out of tb/j di'tri'rt of chau'^a. 
Wbi)>.t w<; l^^bol/l iinv<;ib'-<l tlwj uaturfj o£ Aimiu'M 
and Triitb, w(? l<;arn 1.b<5 (Wilt'sawAi hd^wc/m ihtt al>- 
HoUiUi 'AwA tb<j o/ftKVii'uniii] or r<;Lativ<'.. W'j A]t\>r<i- 
itcjul ihn altnoUiUi. An it w^;r/;, for th/; firwt tim/i, w/? 
'^./•/'/r/. W<; \)<'A'/fUHi immj'>fial, for w<j J/jarn tbiit tim<} 
and Hinu'M'dva rtihitiouu/ftuaiUir; that with a iK;rr;<;i>- 
1 i';n of Irutb or a viituouH will tbi;y Imva no 'diVmhy, . 

5. Finally, r<;li;^ioti and etbi<;«, wbi/;b may Us 



02 IDEALISM. 

fitly called the practice of ideas, or the introduc- 
tion of ideas into life, have an analogous effect 
with all lower culture, in degrading nature and 
suggesting its dependence on spirit. Ethics and 
religion differ herein ; that the one is the system 
of human duties commencing from man ; the other, 
from God. Religion includes the personality of 
God ; Ethics does not. They are one to our pres- 
ent design. They both put nature under foot. The 
first and last lesson of religion is, " The things 
that are seen, are temporal ; the things that are un- 
seen, are eternal." It puts an affront upon nature. 
It does that for the unschooled, which philosophy 
does for Berkeley and Yiasa. The uniform lan- 
g-uage that may be heard in the churches of the 
most ignorant sects is, — "Contemn the unsub- 
stantial shows of the world ; they are vanities, 
dreams, shadows, unrealities ; seek the realities of 
religion."' The devotee flouts nature. Some theo- 
sophists have arrived at a certain hostility and in- 
dignation towards matter, as the Manichean and 
Plotinus. They distrusted m themselves any look- 
ing back to these flesh-pots of Egyjit. Plotinus 
was ashamed of his body. In short, they might 
all say of matter, what Michael Angelo said of ex- 
ternal beauty, "• It is the frail and weary weed, in 
which God dresses the soul which he has called 
into time." 



IDEALISM. 63 

It appears that motion, poetry, physical and in- 
tellectual science, and religion, all tend to affect 
our convictions of the reality of the external world. 
But I own there is something ungrateful in ex- 
panding too curiously the particulars of the gen- 
eral projDosiiion, that all culture tends to imbue us 
with idealism. I have no hostility to nature, but a 
child's love to it. I expand and live in the warm 
day like corn and melons. Let us speak her fair. 
I do not wish to fling stones at my beautiful 
mother, nor soil my gentle nest. I only wish to 
indicate the true position of nature in regard to 
man, wherein to establish man all right education 
tends ; as the ground which to attain is the object 
of hiunan life, that is, of man's connection with 
nature. Culture inverts the vulgar views of na- 
ture, and brings the mind to call that apparent 
which it uses to call real, and that real which it 
uses to call visionary. Children, it is true, believe 
in the external world. The belief that it appears 
only, is an afterthought, but with culture this faith 
will as surely arise on the mind as did the first. 

The advantage of the ideal theory over the pop- 
ular faith is this, that it presents the world in pre- 
cisely that view which is most desirable to the 
mind. It is, in fact, the view which Reason, both 
speculative and practical, that is, philosophy and 
virtue, take. For seen in the light of thought, the 



64 IDEALISM. 

world always is i)lienonicnal ; and virtue siiboi-di- 
iiates it to the mind. Idealism sees the world in 
God. It beholds the whole circle of persons and 
things, of actions and events, of country and re- 
ligion, not as painfidly accumulated, atom after 
atom, act after act, in an aged creeping Past, but 
as one vast picture which God paints on the in- 
stant eternity for the contemplation of the soid. 
Therefore the soul holds itself off from a too trivial 
and nucroscopic study of the universal tablet. It 
respects the end too much to immerse itself in the 
means. It sees something more important in Chris- 
tianity than the scandals of ecclesiastical history 
or the niceties of criticism ; and, very incurious 
concerning persons or miracles, and not at all dis- 
turbed by chasms of historical evidence, it accepts 
from God the phenomenon, as it iinds it, as the 
pure and awful form of religion in the world. It 
is not hot and passionate at the appearance of what 
it calls its own good or bad fortune, at the union 
or op})ositIon of other persons. No man is its en- 
emy. It accepts whatsoever befalls, as part of its 
lesson. It is a watcher more than a doer, and it is 
a doer, only that it may the better watch. 



CHAPTER VII. 

SPIRIT. 

It is essential to a true theory of nature and of 
man, that it should contain somewhat progressive. 
Uses that are exhausted or that may be, and facts 
that end in the statement, cannot be all that is true 
of this brave lodging wherein man is harbored, and 
wherein all his faculties find appropriate and end- 
less exercise. And all the uses of nature admit of 
being summed in one, which yields the activity of 
man an infinite scope. Through all its kingdoms, 
to the suburbs and outskirts of things, it is faithful 
to the cause whence it had its origin. It always 
speaks of Spirit. It suggests the absolute. It is 
a perpetual effect. It is a great shadow pointing 
always to the sun behind us. 

The aspect of Nature is devout. Like the figure 
of Jesus, she stands with bended head, and hands 
folded upon the breast. The happiest man is he 
who learns from nature the lesson of worship. 

Of that ineffable essence which we call Spirit, 
he that thinks most, will say least. We can fore- 
see God in the coarse, and, as it were, distant 

VOL. I. 5 



66 SPIRIT. 

phenomena of matter ; but when we try to deine 
anil describe himself, both language and thought 
desert . us, and we are as helpless as fools and sav- 
ages. That essence refuses to be recorded in prop- 
ositions, but when man has worshipped him in- 
tellectually, the noblest ministry of nature is to 
stand as the apparition of God. It is the organ 
thi'ough which the universal spirit speaks to the 
individual, and strives to lead back the individual 
to it. 

When we consider Sjiirit, we see that the views 
already presented do not include the whole circum- 
ference of man. We must add some related 
thoughts. 

Three problems are put by nature to the mind ; 
What is matter? Whence is it? and Whereto? 
The first of these questions only, the ideal theory 
answers. Idealism saith : matter is a phenomenon, 
not a substance. Idealism acquaints us with the 
total disparity between the evidence of our own 
beinjr and the evidence of the world's being. The 
one is perfect ; the other, incapable of any assur- 
ance : the mind is a part of the nature of things ; 
the world is a divine dream, from which we may 
presently awake to the glories and certainties of 
day. Idealism is a hypothesis to accoimt for na- 
ture by other principles than those of carpentry 
and chemistry. Yet, if it only deny the existence 



SPIRIT. 67 

of matter, it does not satisfy the demands of the 
spirit. It leaves God out of me. It leaves me 
in the splendid labyrinth of my perceptions, to 
wander without end. Then the heart resists it, 
because it balks the affections in denying substan- 
tive being to men and women. Nature is so j)er- 
vaded with human life that there is something of 
humanity in all and in every particular. But this 
theory makes nature foreign to me, and does not 
account for that consanguinity which we acknowl- 
edge to it. 

Let it stand then, in the present state of our 
knowledge, merely as a usefid introductory hypoth- 
esis, serving to apprise us of the eternal distinc- 
tion between the soul and the world. 

But when, following the invisible steps of thought, 
we come to inquire, Whence is matter? and AVhere- 
to ? many truths arise to us out of the recesses of 
consciousness. We learn that the highest is pres- 
ent to the soul of man ; that the dread universal 
essence, which is not wisdom, or love, or beauty, or 
power, but all in one, and each entirely, is that for 
which all things exist, and that by which they are ; 
that spirit creates ; that behind nature, throughout 
nature, spirit is present ; one and not compound it 
does not act upon us from without, that is, in space 
and time, but spiritually, or through ourselves : 
therefore, that spirit, that is, the Supreme Being, 



OS srmrr. 

tloos \u\\ ImiUl up UMliuo nrinuul us h\\{ puts it. 
forth (hwMtLih us. as iho lito of tho tv«>o puts t\>rth 
now l>r;n\ohos nuil lo;nos thn>Uiil\ tlio po\-os o( tlio 
»»U1. As a plimt upon tho o:\itli. so a uian Vv>sts 
\\\\ou iho lH>S(Mn ot' (uxl : ho is uourishod hv uufail- 
injj fountains, auil ihaws at his wood inr\haustihK» 
powor. \\ hi> I'au sot houn<ls io tho possi.hilitios of 
n\a»\? C)noo inhahMho upptM- air, hoiu;'; a*hnittoil 
to l>(*hi>hl tho ahsohito nattnvs of ju.stioo auil truth, 
and wo Kwru that uiau lias ai'Ot^ss io tho ('utiro 
nnn<l o\' tho C^vat^M\ is hiuisolf tho I'roator iu tho 
tiuitt\ rhis vi»n\. whioh adnioiushos mo whort' tho 
sinuvos of wisdom i\nd powor lio. ami points to vir- 
tuo as to 

"VVliioh ojH^s tho |v>l!uv of otornity," 

ojvrrios npoi\ its faoo tho hiu'host oovtitii«ato of truth, 
Innnuiso it animatos nio to oivato luv <nvn worhl 
thn>u>;h tho pin-itloativni ot" uiy soid. 

Tho wvMhl pi\H»oods fi\Mu tho sanio spirit as tho 
body of »\)an. It is a ivniotor auvl inforior incarna- 
tion vW" liivl. a pi\\jootion of (lod in tho nnoon- 
soions. Ihit it tlitYors fi»ni tho body in ono inipoi'- 
tant ivspoot. It is not, liUo that, now snbjootod to 
tho hnn\an wiU. Its soivno in\Un* is inviohddo by 
ns. It is, thoivfo'.v. io ns. tho pivsoi\t expositor of 
tho diviixo luiuib It is a tixotJ point whoivby wo 
may moasuiv our doparturo. .Vs wo vlogxuiorato. 



HI 'I I! 1 1 Cfy 

\\m'. r,<ftdrii.ni })<^.w(;4;u ijh }uu\ our hotm; ih mara *;vj- 
<\(,ht. VV^; an; HH ifnu.li HUiui^cA'H in tiatum hh wa 
inc. nUctiH f'/orn O'hI. VV«; do /lot, rjrifl'jrHtfifK) ttu? 
/iot>;H of binin. 'i Jx; fox JtorJ t,ho (Jo<;r run away 
from UH ; tiw- \><-/,a- and t,i/^<;r rond iw. W»; do not, 
know th^. um;n of inoro tjian a fow fjlant^, ;tH r^>rTi 
and Uio af>f;l«;, tJi<; (>of,at/; and fJio vine. Ih not th<j 
l;u)dw;a[)<!, every ^Jinip-^; of wiiifih hath a grandeur, 
a fa'to of })irf) ? Yet t}ii« may .nhow u» what din- 
<-/n(l in \><^.wfA',u man and nature, fr/r yr/n v/AmuA. 
fn;ely a^lmiro a noble Jandj^jape if laJx^rerH are 
dij^g^In;^ In tlie fiehJ hard i;y. 'i iie jx;<;t finfJ.H Horiny- 
thinf( rirJienJon.H in hin delight until he in out of the 
Might of ffie/j. 



( iiArri K VI 11. 

In inquli'ios ivspootiiiii" ilio laws oi tho wovUl 
Miiil [\w t'lauio o( thing's, tlio hii;host ivnsiMi is al- 
ways (ho tniost. That whii'li s»hmhs t'aijitly ^n^s- 
siiblo, it is so tvtiiuvl. is odou faint auJ dim lu^ 
oauso it is lUvpost soatinl in (ho luimi amouLi' (ho 
otorual vovi(ios. F.iupiiii'al soionoo is ap{ (o iloiul 
tho siii'ht. aiul In (ho vorv knv>\vhHliix^ of fuuo(ious 
i\iu\ jnxHVSsos (o hovoaxo (ho stiuUMit of (lu^ manly 
oon(ompla(iou of (ho wholo. \\w savau( booomos 
uujHvtio. Uut tho host voatl naturalist \vln> lonils 
an entiiv and dowmt a(tontion (o (iiuh. uill soo 
that thow ivniains mnoh tv> loam of his ivla(ion 
to tho Win'hl, auil (ha( i( is uo( (o bo loainod hv 
any addition or suhtraotio»\ or odior ovunparison 
of known quamitios. lni( is arvivoil a( hv nn(aniiht 
sjvUioii i^t" tlio spirit, l\v a oon(innal solf-uvovovv, 
anvl l\Y oi\tiiv hnmilitv. Ho will jHMvoivo that thoiv 
atv far n»oiv o\oollon( i|uali(ios i»i (l»o stndont than 
juwisonoss and infallihilirv : (hat a iiiu\<s is of(on 
inon> frnitfid than an indispn(ablo at^irnxation. and 
that a lUvani xnav lot us doojHM' into tho soi*ivt ivf 
uatuiv than a Inniditnl o\>i\oort<Hl oxjHH'inionts, 



J'ltOSI'KfJTH. 71 

For U|(; \)r<t\)\t:U\H \/i \)(t H4}]vcA Ulf; ]>r(;c'lH(;\y i\nM', 

wliifJi Ifx; j;})yHir>Jo;.OHt a/j<J fJi<; naf,ijraIiHt omit f/* 
Ktat*!. If, in not ho p'tftinf^nt t/) fnari f/) know all 
tlj<; inrJividiialH of t}i<5 animal king^<Jom, ax it ih t/> 
know v/\iHucM and wfir;mt^i iw thin tyrannizing unity 
ill liiw (^>nHtitution, which cvcr'monj mymrntnH an/1 
claHHifi/;H thin^H, *;nfI<;avonn;( to rcAncM ihtt moHt 
<livf;rH<? t/> on(; form. VVhcrj I IjcliokJ a rioh laml- 
Hcajx;, it IH IrjHH t/> rny \mr\K>,Mt \/> vojuUi </)trt'j:t\y 
tli<; oif|<;r an«l «ijj)f;r|>OHition of tlio strata, than f/> 
know why all tfioiight of mii]titu<J<; in k/Ht in a 
tra/i'juij Kcnw; of (jnity. I f;an not greatly honor 
minnO;nr;HH in (ictaiJ.H, Ko long aH fiujrc ih no 
liint to <;X}>ki,in the rekition fiotwrji^n thingH and 
tlioijgfitH ; no ray uj>on the metaph'f/)iks of f^jn- 
chology, of hotany, of thi; artw, to hIiow tlio rela^ 
tio/i of tlj<; fornix of flowtjrH, hKoJIw, animalv<, archi- 
l/icturo, to the minil, and fjuild HCAitiu-Ai upon ideaH. 
Ill a cafjinet of natural imtovy, wc W^jme scn- 
nihle of a certain oc^jult rcf;ognition and Hympathy 
in regard t/> the moht unwieldly anrl ecr^;ntric 
form;< of licast, fiili, and itiHc/^. IIkj American 
who h;tH }jc,en (/>nfine<l, in hin own country, to the 
higlit of huiJdingB dcjHigrif^l aft^jr foreign mrxlelw, i« 
Hurjirined on entering Vr^rk MinHt*;r or St. Vctar'n 
at Home, hy the i'citWii'^ tliat thcHe Ktructur<iH are 
imitatiouH alno, — faint copiew of an invinihle ar- 
chetyfie. Nor Iihh H<;iencc Ku0icicnt humanity, 60 



72 PKOSPECTS. 

long as the naturalist overlooks that wonderful 
congruity which siibsists between man and the 
world ; of whieh he is loixl, not because he is the 
most subtile inhabitant, but because he is its head 
and heart, and tinds something of himself in every 
gi'eat and small thing, in every mountain strat\mi, 
in every new law of color, fact of astronomy, or at- 
mospheric intluence which observation or analysis 
lays oj)on. A perception of this mystery inspires 
the muse of George Herbert, tlie beautiful psahuist 
of the seventeenth i-enturv. The followino- lines 
aiv pai't of his lit tie poem on Man. 

" Man is all symmetry, 
Fxill of pivportious, one limb to another, 

Aud to all the world besides. 

Each part may eall the farthest, bi-other ; 
For head with t"oi>t hath private amity, • * 

Aud both with moons and tides. 

" Nothing hath ^t so far 
Bnt man hath caiight and kept it as his prey ; 

His eyes dismount the highest star : 

He is in little all the sphei-e. 
Herbs gladly cm-e our tlesh, Wcauso that they 

Find theii" aei]uaiutauce there. 

" For us, the winds do blow, 
The earth doth i-est, heaven move, and fountains flow; 
Nothing we see, bnt means our gvHxl, 
As our delight, or Jis oiu* tivasiuv; 



PROSPECTS. 73 

The whole is eitJier our cupboard of food, 
Or cabinet of pleasure. 

" Tlie stars have us to bed: 
Night draws the curtain; which the sun withdraws. 

Music and light attend our head. 

All things unto our flesh are kind, 
In their descent and being; to our niind, 

In their ascent and cause. 

" More servants wait on man 
Than he '11 take notice of. In every path. 

He treads down that which doth befriend him 

When sickness makes him pale and wan. 
Oh mighty love! Man is one world, and hath 

Another to attend him." 

The perception of this class of truths makes the 
attraction which draws men to science, but the end 
is lost sight of in attention to the means. In view 
of this half-sight of science, we accept the sentence 
of Plato, that " poetry comes nearer to vital truth 
than history." Every surmise and vaticination of 
the mind is entitled to a certain respect, and we 
learn to prefer imperfect theories, and sentences 
which contain glimpses of truth, to digested sys- 
tems which have no one valuable suggestion. A 
wise writer will feel that the ends of study and com- 
position are best answered by announcing undis- 
covered regions of thought, and so communicating, 
through hope, new activity to the torpid spirit. 



74 PROSPECTS. 

I sliall therefoie conclude this essay with some 
traditions of man and nature, which a certain poet 
sang" to me ; and which, as they have always been 
in the world, and perhaps reai)pear to every bard, 
may be both history jmd prophecy. 

' The foundations of man are not in matter, but 
ill spirit. But the element of spirit is eternity. To 
it, therefore, the longest series of events, the old- 
est chronologies are young and recent. In the cycle 
of the universal man, from whom the known indi- 
viduals proceed, centuries are points, and all history 
is but the epoch of one degradation. 

' We distrust aiid deny inwardly our sympathy 
with nature. We onvii and diso^^'ll our relation to 
it, by turns. We are like Nebuchadnezzar, de- 
throned, bereft of reason, and eating grass like an 
ox. But who can set limits to the remedial force of 
spirit ? 

' A man is a god in ruins. When men are inno- 
cent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the im- 
mortal as gently as we awalce from dreams. Now, 
the world would be insane and rabid, if these dis- 
organizations should last for hundreds of years. It 
is kept in check by death and infancy. Infancy is 
the perpetual Messiah, which comes into the arms 
of fallen men, and pleads with them to retmii to 
paradise. 

' M:ui is the dwaif of himself. Once he was per- 



PROSPECTS. 75 

meated and dissolved by spirit. He filled nature 
with his overflowing currents. Out from him 
sprang the sun and moon ; from man the sun, 
from woman the moon. The laws of his mind, the 
periods of his actions externized themselves into 
day and night, into the year and the seasons. But, 
having made for himself this huge shell, his waters 
retired ; he no longer fills the veins and veinlets ; 
he is shrunk to a drop. He sees that the structure 
still fits him, but fits him colossally. Say, rather, 
once it fitted him, now it corresponds to him from 
far and on high. He adores timidly his own work. 
Now is man tlj<i follower of the sun, and woman the 
follower ^ f the moon. Yet sometimes he starts in 
his sluiril)er, and wonders at himself and his house, 
and muses strajigely at the resemblance betwixt him 
and it. Hf; perceives that if his law is still para- 
mount, if still he have elemental power, if his word 
is sterling yet in nature, it is not conscious power, 
it is not inferior but superior to his will. It is in- 
stinct.' Thus my Orphic poet sang. 

^ fc present, man applies to nature but half his 
force. He works on the world with his understand- 
ing alone. He lives in it and masters it by a pen- 
ny-wisdom ; and he that works most in it is but a 
half-man, and whilst his arms are strong and his 
digestion good, his mind is iinbruted, and he is a 
selfish savage. His relation to nature, his power 



OYOV \t, is thn>ugh (lu> umlorstanJiuj;', as l>v nia- 
um\^ ; tlu* ooououiio uso of lijv, wiml, wator, ami 
(ho marinov's iuuhUo ; stoam, i'v>a], ohtMuioal aii'vioul- 
tuiv : tho nn>airs ot" tlu> human IhhIv l>v iht^ thM»tist 
ami tho s\»Vi>\H>u. This is suoh a rosmuptiou ol* 
jH^Nor as it" a banishoil kiuy; shiMiUl buv his torriti>- 
rios iivoh h\ iiu'h, instoa^l ot" vnultiuii" ut onoo into his 
tlux>no. Moantinio, in tho tliiok ihukuoss, thoiv aiv 
iu>t wantiuij" li'loams o( n lutdn- lii^ht. -— tn'oj' al 
oxauiplos ivf tl»o action i>l man upon natnro v -,^i 
ontiiv t\>iw, — with ivason as woll as \um -.o 

in«i'. Sxu'h o\autph\>< avo, tho tnulititms ol nuvaolos 
iiv tho oarlit^st ai\tiqnit\ of all nations; tho 
o( ilosus (.Mu'ist : tlio aohioYotnonts ot' a pn 
as in ivliiiioiis autl politioal ivw^lntious, an< 
abolition ot" tho slavi^tnulo : ti»o nuvaolos of ; 
siasnu as thoso ivpovtoJ ot" Swoilonlnn-^j, llolu .i 
ami tho Shakoi's ; many obsomv ai\il yot iH»nt» ^ i 
faots, now arrangvil nmlor U»o uauu^ ot" A 
Mai;notism : pvavor : ohH|uouiv ; solt"-hoalinsi au>l 
tho wisdom ot" ihiUltvn. Thoso aiv oxani} 
Koason's inoinoutary ji"«*^^P ^^f tho sooptiv : t r\ 
ovtuvus i>f a jHnvoi" whii'h oxists not in timo <m 
but an iustant.antHnis in-^tivauiim;- causing j 
Tho ilit"lVivnoo Ivtwtvn tlu^ aotnal anil tho itloa' . 
of man is happily tiguwHl by tho sohoolmon. i s;»y- 
ing, that tho kninvUnlgv of man is an oYouing)<nv»w'i 
tnlgw re^jn^t'Hna ViujRitk\ but that of (u^i is u 
inovning" knowlotlgv, mahttimt ct\<;««Yio. 



rUOSPKCTH. 77 

Thft \)vt)\>\(Ui of roMtcmri'^ U> ihfi world original 
a/i<l i'.U'A-n'di\ locality i« ho1v<j<1 t^y tlui rr}<I<;jnpti.ori of 
t}j<i HouJ. 'I'lio iiiiri or tlm blank tJiat we wie when 
\Nit \<>(>k at nature, Ih in our own eye. T\Mi nxia of 
vihion \h not rj^jineiident with the axi« of things, and 
HO tfujy apj>ear not tran8[>arent };ut opafjux^ Tim 
vifd^mm why tlie worhl hu^kn unity, and lie« hroktjn 
and in IjeapH, i« IxjtjaiiWi nmn ix dijjunit<j<l with 
It! 1, lie cannot Ui a naturaliHt until lie «ati»- 
ojil', tiie demandw of tb; Hpirit. I^>ve 'im m miK;h 
^ >' nd aH [>en^?ption. Indwid, neitli^r can Ikj 

pert<^'^ V ;th<jut tluj other. In tlui uttermost nw^an- 
\u'^ th.it wordji, thought iw devout, and devotion 
ih lliodgJjt. Deep calls unt'^ d<jep. But in ax.'tual 
life, tl e marriage is not w;hibrat^;<l. Tliere are in- 
nocent men who worship Gfxl after tlue tradition of 
tlieir fatijers, Ijut tlwjir mnm of duty has not yet 
extended to t\ui um of all their fa^julti/iS. And 
there are patient natui-alists, but tliey frw};^} theii' 
subj<^;t under the wintry ligiit of the umLerstand- 
ing. Ih not prayer aho a study of trutli, — a sally 
of tlue mml mU) tlwj unfound infinite? No man 
ever prayfi<l Iw^artily witlumt learning something. 
But wlj/iu a faithful think^jr, resolute to d<ita<;h 
every oljject from personal rejatiorw and ncM it in 
the light of thought, sliall, at the same time, kindle 
HcieiHMi with tlie fire of tlui holiest affections, then 
will Go<l go forth anew inUj the creation. 



78 rnospFCTS. 

It will \\o{ uooil, whiMi tlu> luiml Is jm*|)aroil l\>r 
stiulv, U> soan'h for obitH'ts. Tho iuv:ivi:il>lo mark 
of wisdom is io soo \\\o mirai'ult>us iu lhi> iu>minon. 
AVhat is a day ? \\'ha( is a yoar? What is sum- 
mor? ^^'llat is woman ? \Vhat is a I'liihl? What 
is sloop? 1\> onv Miiuhioss, thoso things sootn lui- 
atVootiiii:". Wo luaUo fablos to hi(K> tho haUhioss 
of tho faot ami oonform it, as wo say, io tln> hii;hor 
law of tho miml. Hut whou tho faot is sihmi umlor 
tho liirht of an iiK>a, tho iraiulv fablo faih^s m\ 
shrivols. ^Vo bohohl tho roal hi<;hor law. 'l\^ tl\ 
Aviso, thoroforo, a iiwi is tvuo |H>otrv, and tho most 
boantiful of fal>li>s. rht>st> wondovs aro broniiht to 
our own door. ^ on alsi> aro a man. Man and 
woman and tlunr sooial lifo, povorty, labor, sloop, 
foar, fortuno, aro kni^wn to yon. Loaru that nono 
of thoso thing's is suporiioial, but that oaoh phonom- 
onini has its roots iu tho faoultios and atYootious i>f 
tho u\iud. AVhilst tho abstniot quostiou oooupios 
your iutolloot, uatnro brings it iu tho oouoivto to 
bo solvod bv your hands. It woro a wiso iniiuirv 
for tho olovsot, to oomparo, pi>int by point, ospt^ 
I'ially at romarUablo orisos in lifo, our daily history 
with tho riso and pn^givss oi idoas in tho n\ind. 

So shall wo oomo to look at tho worUl with now 
evos. It shall auswor tho ondloss iutpiiry of tho 
iutolloot. — What is truth? and of tho atYootious, 
— What is sivod? bv violdiug itsolf passivo to tho 



I'hOSf'KrjTH. 79 

r;flnf;at/;fl Will. '\'\\(n Hfiail corrif; to pann what my 
pof.t Haid; ' Xatiirf; Ih not i\\cA but fluid. Spirit 
aJt<;rH, mould H, mak*!H it. '^TTi^; immobility or brutf> 
n<HH of nature Is tlie aLwinc^; of spirit; to pure 
Hpirit it in fluid, it Ih volatile, it \n obe<lient. 
P^very Hpirit build.s itfM;lf a hou»<j and beyond its 
liouH^j a world and };eyond it.H world a heaven. 
Know then that the world existH for you. For you 
i.H the phenomenon perf^j^.'t. What we anj, tfiat 
only ean we Hee. All that Adam harl, all that 
('yHiHur cjmhl, you have and ean do. Adam called 
fiJH liouse, heaven and earth ; Caesar called hh 
liouHC, Itome ; you perhaps call yours, a cobbler's 
traile ; a hundrf;d axjres of jiloughed land ; or a 
scholar's garret. Vet line for line and point for 
point your dominion is as great as theirs, thr/ugh 
witli^jut fine names. Build therefore your own 
world. As fast as you oanfonn your life to the 
pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great 
yiroportions. A correspondent revolution in things 
will attend the influx of the spirit. So fast will 
disagr(;eable appearances, swine, spiders, snakes, 
pests, mad-hoaH<js, pris^jns, enemies, vanish; they 
are t^^mporary and shall he no more Wicn. '^Tlje 
sordor and filths of nature, thr; sun shall dry up 
and the wind exliale. As when the sunrimer c^;mes 
from the south the snow-banks melt and the far;e 
of the earth becomes green before it, so sliall the 



§0 rK(>v^ris'(^rA 

aiui l^J»vn' wJth it tho K\«u»tv it visits {»»il tho sv>usi' 
whioh ouohjuxts it ; it shiUl limw In^uitifiil t'{u^>s, 
wanw h<'^ivts» wist^ ilisw\\t'St\ jmwI houMO ju^ts, jn>nu\J 
its \v»\\ until evil is no nuviv ?»tvn. Tho kii\ji\Uvni 
^vf mjwx owv i\atn»\\ whioh vHvnn^th t\ot with o\>soi^- 
Y»tiow» — » ilon\inion suoh as ni^w is Knon^l his 
ihw'un of (^vhI. — ho shall ontor without ntoiv won- 
ilov thjux tho \xli\ul tnivn ftvls who is i;i:ivhuvUv \>>- 
Sitvmxl tv» ^vvtWt sijiht.* 



Tl\y: A.MKKICAN fcCHOLAli. 

A A' OiiA'i/OBf VEUVKhKlj KKkOtiE 'filK I'iil hWtk KAPPA fcOCIBTT, 



THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 



Mk. President and Gentlemen, 

I GREET you on the recommencement of our lit- 
erary year. Our anniversary Ls one of hope, and, 
perhaps, not enough of la}>or. We do not meet 
for games of strength or skill, for the recitation of 
histories, tragedies, and odes, like the ancient 
Greeks ; for parliaments of love and poesy, like 
the Troubadours ; nor for the advancement of sci- 
ence, like our contemporaries in the British and 
European capitals. Thus far, our holiday lias been 
simply a friendly sign of the survival of the love of 
letters amongst a people too busy to give U) letters 
any more. As such it is precious as the sign of an 
indestructible instinct. Perhaj)s the time is al- 
leatly come when it ought to be, and will be, some- 
thing else ; when the sluggard intellect of this con- 
tinent will look from under its iron lids and fill the 
postponed expectation of the world with something 
Ijctter tlian the exertions of mechanical skill. Our 
day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the 
learning of other lands, draws to a close. The mil- 



84 THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 

lions tluit anniutl iis ju-e nislnng into life, cannot 
iilwavs bo IVhI i>u tlie seit^ i-eiuaius of foreign har- 
A'ests. Events, aoti(ins arise, that must be sung", 
that will sine- themselves. Who can doubt that 
poetry will revive anil le:ul iiianew age, as tlie star 
rn the constellation llarp, whiiOi now tlames in o\ir 
zenith, astn>m>mers anixounce, sliall one day be tlio 
ptUt^star for a thousand years ? 

In this hope I accept the topic which not only 
usage but the nature of our association seem to 
pi'esoribe to this day, — tlie Amiikican Scholak. 
Yeai' by year we come up hither to read one more 
chapter of his bii>giaphy. Ijct xis impiire what 
liiiht new davs and events have thrown on his char- 
acter and his hopes. 

It is one of those fables which out of an uldvno^^^l 
antiquity convey an mdoi>ked-for wisdom, that the 
gods, in the beginning, divided Man into men, that 
he might be moiv helpful to himself ; just as the 
hand was divided into liugers, the better to answer 
its end. 

The old fable eovei's a diK*trine ever new and 
sublime ; that thei-e is One Man, — pi-esent to all 
particular men only pivrtially, or through one fac- 
ulty ; and that you uuist take the whole society to 
find the whole man. Man is not a farmer, or a 
pi\>fessor, or an engineer, but he is all. Man is 
priest, and scholar, and statesman, and pixxlucer. 



THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 85 

and soldier. In the divided, or social state these 
functions are parcelled out to individuals, eac-h of 
whom aims to do his stint of the joint work, whilst 
each other performs hLs. The fable implies that 
the individual, to possess himself, must sometimes 
♦eturn from his own labor to embrace all the other 
laborers. But, unfortunately, this original unit, 
this fountain of power, has been so distributed to 
multitudes, lias been so minutely subdivided and 
peddled out, that it is spilled into drops, and can- 
not be gathered. The state of society is one in 
which the memljers have suffered amputation from 
the trunk, and strut a}>out so ipany walking mon- 
sters, — a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an el- 
bow, but never a man, 

Man is thus metamor-phosed into a thing, into 
many things. The planter, who is Man sent out 
into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered by 
any idea of the true dig-nity of his ministry. He 
sees his bushel and his cart, and nothing beyond, 
and sinks into the farmer, instead of Man on the 
farm. The tradesman scarcely ever gives an ideal 
woi-th to his work, but is ridden by the routine of 
his craft, and the soul is suljject to dollars. The 
priest becomes a form ; the attorney a statute-book ; 
the mechanic a machine ; the sailor a rope of the 
ship. 

In this distribution of functions the scholar is 



86 THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 

the delegated intellect. In the right state he ia 
Man Th'inl'ing. In the degenerate state, when 
the victim of society, he tends to become a mere 
thinker, or still worse, the parrot of other men's 
tliinking. 

In this view of him, as Man Thinking, the th# 
or}' of his office is contained. Him Nature solicits 
with all her placid, all her monitory pictures ; him 
the past instructs ; him the future invites. Is not 
indeed every man a student, and do not all things 
exist for the student's behoof? And, finally, is not 
the true scholar the only true master ? But the 
old oracle said, " All things have two handles : be- 
ware of the wrong one." In life, too often, the 
scholar errs with mankind and forfeits his pri\d- 
lege. Let us see him in his school, and consider 
him in reference to the main influences he re- 
ceives. 

I. The first in time and the first in importance 
of the influences upon the mind is that of nature. 
Every day, the sim ; and, after smiset. Night and 
her stars. Ever the winds blow ; ever the grass 
grows. Every day, men and women, conversing, 
beholding and beholden. The scholar is he of all 
men whom this spectacle most engages. He must 
settle its value in .his mind. What is natiu*e to 
him ? There is never a beginning, there is never 



THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 87 

an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web 
of God, but always circular power returning into it- 
seK. Therein it resembles his own Spirit, whose 
beginning, whose ending, he never can find, — so 
entire, so boundless. Far too as her splendors 
shine, system on system ^hooting like rays, up- 
ward, downward, without centre, without circum- 
ference, — in the mass and in the particle. Nature 
hastens to render account of herself to the mind. 
Classification begins. To the young mind every 
thing is individual, stands by itself. By and by, it 
finds how to join two things and see in them one 
natiu'e ; then three, then three thousand ; and so, 
tyrannized over by its own unifying instinct, it goes 
on tying things together, diminishing anomalies, 
discovering roots running under ground whereby 
contrary and remote things cohere and flower out 
from one stem. It presently learns that since the 
dawn of history there has been a constant accumu- 
lation and classifying of facts. But what is classi- 
fication but the perceiving that these objects are 
not chaotic, and are not foreign, but have a law 
which is also a law of the human mind ? The as- 
tronomer discovers that geometry, a pure abstrac- 
tion of the human mind, is the measure of plan- 
etary motion. The chemist finds proportions and 
intelligible method throughout matter ; and sci- 
ence is nothing but the finding of analogy, iden- 



8v^ THE AMERICAN SCHOT.AU. 

titv, in tlu^ n\i>st romoto parts. The ainbituMis soul 
sits tU>\\ u bofoit^ i>;u'h rofraotorv faot ; oiio after aii- 
otlior roiliu'os all stran^'o constitutions, all now pow- 
ers, to their class anil their law, ami <ii>es on for- 
ever to animate the last lUne of organ i/atiou, tlio 
out ski its of natnre, bv insight. 

Tl\ns to hin». io this sehool-l>ov uuJer the beml- 
iuii" ilome of day, is sni;"i;esteil that he ami it i>ro- 
ceeil fivm one root : one is leaf aiul one is iUnver ; 
. ivlation, sympathy, stirring- in every vein. And 
what is that i\>ot? Is not that the soul of his soul? 
A thonsiht too bold: a dream too wild. Yet when 
this spiritual li;;ht shall have revealed the law of 
more earthly natures, — when he has learned to 
worship the soul, and to see that the natural phik>- 
sophy that now is, is only the tu*st gwpiug-s of its 
o-icantic hand, he sliall look forward to an ever ex- 
pauding knowledgo as to a becoming- civator. lie 
shall see that uatniv is the opposite of the soid, 
auswenug to it p\rt for part. One Is seal and one 
is print. Its beauty is the beauty of his owii mind. 
Its laws are the laws of his own mind. Nature 
then becomes to hin\ the measure of his attain- 
ments. So nuu h of nature as he is ignorant of, so 
much of his own mind does he not yet possess. 
And, in tu\e. the ancient pivcept, " Know th^-self," 
and the luiHlern pre<.vpt, " Study uatiuv," Ivcome 
at hist one nuixim. 



THE AMERICAN HCIIOEAR. 89 

II. Tho nf;xt ^-cat infli^crico into the Hpiiit of 
the Hchohir in tlic mind of the i^ant, — in whatever 
form, whether of literature, of art, of inHtltutions, 
that mind is iriHeribed. iiooks are the best type of 
the influ(!nee of the past, and perhaps we Hhall get 
at tlie truth, — h;arn the amount of thiw influence 
more conveniently, — \)y c^jnsidering their value 
alone. 

The theory of hooks is nohle. Tlie H^;holar of 
the first age received into him the world around ; 
brooded thereon ; gave it the new arrangement of 
his own mind, and utt<;refl it again. It came int^> 
him life; it went out from him tnith. It came 
to him short-lived a<;tions ; it went out from him 
immortal thoughts. It came to him business ; it 
went from him poetry. It was dead fact ; now, it 
is quick thought. It can stand, and it can go. It 
now endures, it now flies, it now inspires. Pre- 
cisely in propoi-tion to the depth of mind from 
which it issued, so high docs it soar, so long docs 
it sing. 

Or, I might say, it dejiends on how far the prr>- 
cess had gone, of transmuting life into tr-uth. In 
proportion to the f^ompletcness of the distillation, 
BO will the purity and imperishableness of the pro- 
duct be. But none is quite pei-fcct. As no air- 
pump can by any means make a per-fect vacuum, 
so neither can any artist entirely exclude the con- 



1)0 THR AMI' HI CAN SCHOLAR. 

vtMitlonnl, lhi> local, tlui porishablo Inmi his book, 
(M- wiiti^ a l>ooU of pure thought, that shall ho as 
otVu'iout, in all ii'spoots, to a ronioto pt)stontY, as to 
t'otitiMupovavios, or rathor to tho socond a^v. Kach 
a>;v, it is lountl, imist writo its i>\vn bot>ks ; or 
rathor, oaoh t;vnoration i"or tho uo\t siu'oooding". 
Tho hooks of an ohlor porioil will not tit this. 

Yt>t honi'o arises a uravo misi'hiof. Tho sjiored- 
uoss whii'h attai'hos to tho aot of cn>ation, tho not 
t>f (houiiht, is transl\»rro(l to tlu> rooord. Tho i)oot 
chantiuii" was folt to bo a divitio man: houooforth 
tho ohaut is «livlnt> also. Tho writer was a jnst ami 
wise spirit : hout'ofovwai'il it is settleil the boi>k is 
perfect; as love of the hero eovvnpts into worship 
of his statue. Instantly the book beeonies noxious: 
the piitle is a tyrant. The v^lnjijiish :nul perverted 
mind oi the multitude, slow to open to the ineui"- 
situis of Ke:isi>n, having' ouee so opened, having 
ouee reeeivetl this hook, stauds up<u\ it. aud makes 
an vmtery if it is disparagvd. Colleges are built 
ou it. lvH>ks aiv written ou it by thinkers, uot by 
^lau Thiukiug; bv uumi of talent, that is, who start 
wn>ng, who set out from aoeepted dogmas, iu>t 
friuu their own sight i>f priueiples. Meek youug* 
men grow up in lilniiries, believing it their duty to 
iieeept tl\e views whieh Oieero, which Locke, which 
-Ricon, have givi^u : forg-otful th:it Cicen>, Locke, 
and Bacon weiv only young men in libraries wheu 
they wrote these books. 



Till-: AMEinCAN SfJJfOLAH. 91 

IIf;ncc, iriHtea/l r>f Man Thinking, we have the 
bookworm. UancAi tlie }>ook - learned class, who 
value hookB, an Hueh ; not as relate^l t^> nature and 
the human constitution, but as making a sort of 
Third Estat^j with the world and the soul. Ifence 
tlie restorers of reaxlings, the emendators, the bib- 
liomaniax^s of all degn^is. 

l3ookH are the best of things, well ased ; abused, 
among the worst. What is the right use? What 
is the one end which all means go to effect ? Tlicy 
are for nothing ])ut to inspire. I had better never 
Bee a book than to be waqicd by its attraction 
clean out of my own orbit, and ma^le a 8at<;;llite in- 
stead of a system. Tlie one thing in the worlfl, of 
value, is the active soul. This every man in en- 
titled to ; tliis every man contains within him, 
although in almost all men obstructed, and as yet 
unborn. Tlie aovl active se^iS absfjlute truth and 
utters truth, or creates. In this 'd/.tion it is genius; 
not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but 
the sound estate of every man. In its essence it 
is progressive. The book, tlie c^^Uege, the school 
of art, the institution of any kinfl, stf^p with some 
past utteranw of genius. This is gofxl, say they, 
— let us hold by this. Tliey pin me down. They 
look baf:kward and not forward. But genius looks 
forward : the eyes of man are set in his forehea^l, 
not in his hindhead : rrran hopes : genius creates. 



^ 



92 THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 

Whatever talents may be, if the man create not, 
the pure efflux of the Deity is not his ; — cinilers 
and smoke there may be, but not yet flame. There 
are creative manners, there are creative actions, 
and creative words ; manners, actions, words, that 
is, indicative of no custom or autliority, but spring- 
ing- spontaneous from the mind's own sense of good 
and fair. 

On the other part, instead of being its own seer, 
let it receive from another mind its truth, though 
it were in torrents of light, without periods of soli- 
tude, inquest, and self-recovery, and a fatal disser- 
vice is done. Genius is alwaj's sufficiently the en- 
emy of genius by over-influence. The literature of 
every nation bears me \\dtness. The English dra- 
matic poets have Shakspearized now for two hun- 
dred years. 

Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so 
it be sternly subordinated. Man Thinking nuist 
not be subdued by his instruments. Books are for 
the scholar's idle times. When he can read God 
directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in 
other men's transcripts of their readings. But 
when the intervals of darkness come, as come they 
must, — when the sim is hid and the stai'S with- 
draw their shining, — we repair to the lamps 
which were kindled by their ray, to giiide our steps 
to the East ag-ain, where the dawn is. We hear, 



THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 93 

that we may speak. The Arabian proverb says, " A 
fig tree, looking on a fig tree, becometh fruitful." 

It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure 
we derive from the best books. They impress us 
with the conviction that one nature wrote and the 
same reads. AVe read the verses of one of the 
great English poets, of Chaucer, of Marvell, of 
Dryden, with the most modern joy, — with a pleas- 
ure, I mean, which is in gi-eat part caused by 
the abstraction of all time from their verses. There 
is some awe mixed with the joy of our surj)rise, 
when this poet, who lived in some past world, two 
or three hundred years ago, says that which lies 
close to my own soul, that which I also had well- 
nigh thought and said. But for the evidence thence 
afforded to the philosophical doctrine of the iden- 
tity of all minds, we should suppose some preestab- 
lished harmony, some foresight of souls that were 
to be, and some preparation of stores for their fu- 
ture wants, like the fact observed in insects, who lay 
up food before death for the young giub they shall 
never see. 

I would not be hurried by any love of system, by 
any exaggeration of instincts, to underrate the 
Book. We all know, that as the human body can 
be nourished on any food, though it were boiled 
grass and the broth of shoes, so the human mind 
can be fed by any knowledge. And great and 



iU THE AMF.IUCAN SCHOLAR. 

heroic men have existed who had ahnost no other 
iufovmatiou than by tlie printed page. I only 
V ouhl say tliat it needs a strong- head to bear that 
diet. One ninst be mi inventor to read well. As 
the proverb says, " He tliat would bring home the 
N\ ealth of the Indies, nnist carry out the wealth of 
tlio Indies." There is then creative reading as well 
as creative writing. When the mind is braced by 
labor and invention, the page of whatever book 
we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. 
Every sentence is doubly signilicant, and the sense 
of our author is as broad ais tlie world. We then 
see, what is alwap true, that as the seer's horn- of 
vision is short and rare among heavy days and 
months, so is its record, perchance, the least part 
of his volume. The discerning will read, in his 
Plato or Shakspeare, only that least part, — only 
the authentic utterances of the oracle : — all the 
rest he rejects, were it i\cvcr so many times Plato's 
and Shakspeare's. 

Of course theiv is a portion of reading quite indis- 
pensable to a wise man. History and exact science 
he must learn bv laborious readino-. Colleges, in like 
manner, have their iudispens;ible oftice, - — to teach 
elements. But thev can onlv hiirlilv serve us when 
they aim not to driU, but to create ; when they 
Leather from far everv rav of various genius to tlieir 
hospitable halLs, and by the concentrated fiivs, set 



THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 95 

the hearts of their youth on flame. Thought and 
knowledge are natures in which apparatus and pre- 
tension avail nothing. Gowns and pecuniary foun- 
dations, though of towns of gold, can never counter- 
vail the least sentence or syllaljle of wit. Forget this, 
and our American colleges will recede in their pub- 
lic importance, whilst they grow richer every year. 

III. There goes in the world a notion that the 
scholar should be a recluse, a valetudinarian, — as 
unfit for any handiwork or public labor as a pen- 
knife for an axe. The so-caUed " practical men " 
sneer at speculative men, as if, because they specu- 
late or see, they could do nothing. I have heard it 
said that the clergy, — who are always, more uni- 
versally than any other class, the scholars of their 
day, — are addressed as women ; that the rough, 
spontaneous conversation of men they do not hear, 
but only a mincing and diluted speech. They are 
often virtually disfranchised ; and indeed there are 
advocates for their celibacy. As far as this is time 
of the studious classes, it is not just and wise. Ac- 
tion is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essen- 
tial. Without it he is not yet man. Without it 
thought can never ripen into truth. Wliilst the 
world hangs before the eye as a cloud of beauty, we. 
cannot even see its beauty. Inaction is cowardice, 
but there can be no scholar without the heroic 



a 



OC) THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 

iiund. The proamble of thought, the transition 
through whieli it passes from the unconscious to the 
conscioiis, is action. Only so much do I know, as 
I have livoil. Instantly we know whose words are 
loaded with life, and M'hose not. 

The world, — this shadow of the soul, or other me, 
lies wide aroiind. Its attractions are the keys 
which unlock my thoughts and make me acquainted 
with myself. I run eagerly into this resounding 
tumult. I grasp the hands of those next me, and 
take my place in the ring to suffer and to work, 
taught by an instinct that so shall the dumb abyss 
be vocal with speech. I pierce its order ; I dissi- 
pate its fear ; I dispose of it within the circuit of 
my expanding life. So much oidy of life as I know 
by expeiienee, so much of the wilderness have I 
vanquished and planted, or so far have I extended 
my being, my dominion. I do not see how any man 
can afford, for the sake of his nerves and his nap, 
to spare any action in which he can partake. It is 
pearls and rubies to his discourse. Drudgery, ca- 
lamity, exasperation, want, are instructors in elo- 
quence and wisdom. The true scholar grudges 
every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of 
power. 

It is the raw material out of which the intellect 
moulds her splendid products. A strange process 
too, this by which experience is converted into 



THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR, 97 

thought, as a mulberry leaf is converted into satin. 
The manufacture goes forward at all hours. 

The actions and events of our childhood and youth 
are now matters of calmest observation. They lie 
like fair pictures in the air. Not so with our re- 
cent actions, — with the business which we now have 
in hand. On this we are quite unable to speculate. 
Our affections as yet circulate through it. We no 
more feel or know it than we feel the feet, or the 
hand, or the brain of our body. The new deed is 
yet a part of life, — remains for a time immersed 
in our unconscious life. In some contemplative 
hour it detaches itself from the life like a ripe fruit, 
to become a thought of the mind. Instantly it is 
raised, transfigxired ; the corruptible has put on in- 
corruption. Henceforth it Ls an object of beauty, 
however base its origin and neighborhood. Ob- 
serve too the impossibility of antedating this act. 
In its grub state, it cannot fly, it cannot shine, it is 
a dull grub. But suddenly, without observation, 
the selfsame thing unfurls beautiful wings, and is 
an angel of wisdom. So is there no fact, no event, 
in our private history, which sliall not, sooner or 
later, lose its adhesive, inert form, and astonish us 
by soaring from our body into the empyrean. Cra- 
dle and infancy, school and playground, the fear of 
boys, and dogs, and ferules, the love of little maids 
and berries, and many another fact that once filled 

VOL. I. 7 



08 THE AMKIUCAS SCHOLAR. 

the whole sky, ai'e goiio alveaily ; friend and rehi- 
tive, pi'ofession and party, town and eonntiy, nation 
and wovhl, must also soar and sinsi*. 

Of eourse, ho who has p\it forth his total strength 
in fit actions has the richest return of wisdom. I 
will not shut myself out of this globe of action, and 
transplant an oak into a ilower-pot, there to hunger 
anil pine ; nor trust the revenue of some single 
faculty, and exhaust one vein of thought, much 
like those Savoyards, who, getting their livelihood 
by ear^^ng shepherds, shepheidesses, and smoking 
Dutchmen, for all Europe, went out one day to the 
nxountain to find stock, and discovereil that they 
had whittled up the last of their pine-trees. Au- 
thors we have, in mm^bers, who have written out 
their vein, and who, moved by a commendable pru- 
dence, sail for Gi'eece or Palestine, follow the trap- 
per into the prairie, or ramble round Algiers, to 
replenish their meivhantable stock. 

If it were only for a vocabxdary, the scholar 
would be covetous of action. Life is our diction- 
ary. Years ai*e well spent in country label's ; in 
town : in the insight into trades and manufactures ; 
in frank intercoui*se with many men ard women ; 
in science ; in art ; to the one end of masterino- in 
all their facts a language bv which to illustrate 
and embody our peiveptions. I learn immediately 
fivm any speaker how much he has already lived. 



THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 99 

through the poverty or the splendor of his speech. 
Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we 
get tiles and copestones for the masonry of to-day. 
This is the way to learn grammar. Colleges and 
hooks only copy the language which the field and 
the work-yard made. 

But the final value of action, like that of books, 
and better than books, is that it is a resource. 
That great principle of Undulation in nature, that 
shows itself in the inspiring and expiring of the 
breath ; in desire and satiety ; in the ebb and flow 
of the sea; in day and night; in heat and cold; 
and, as yet more deeply ingi-ained in every atom 
and every fluid, is known to us under the name of 
Polarity, — these " fits of easy transmission and 
reflection," as Newton called them, — are the law 
of nature because they are the law of spirit. 

The mind now thinks, now acts, and each fit re- 
produces the other. When the artist has exhausted 
his materials, when the fancy no longer paints, 
when thoughts are no longer apprehended and 
books are a weariness, — he has always the re- 
source to live. Character is higher than intellect. 
Thinking is the function. Living is the function- 
ary. The stream retreats to its source. A gi-eat 
soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to 
think. Does he lack organ or medium to impart 
his truth ? He can still fall back on this elemen- 



/ 



100 THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 

tfil force of liviii"' them. This is a total act. 
Thinking is a partial act. Let the grandeur of 
justice shine in his affairs. Let the beauty of af- 
fection cheer his lowly roof. Those " far from 
fame," who dwell and act with him, will feel the 
force of his constitution in the doings and passages 
of the day better than it can be measured by any 
public and designed display. Time shall teach him 
that the scholar loses no hour which the man lives. 
Herein he unfolds the sacred germ of his instinct, 
screened from influence. What is lost in seemli- 
ness is gained in strength. Not out of those on 
whom systems of education have exhausted their 
culture, comes the helpful giant to destroy the old 
or to build the new, but out of unhandselled sav- 
age nature ; out of terrible Druids and Berserkers 
come at last Alfred and Shakspeare. 

I hear therefore with, joy whatever is beginning 
to be said of the dignity and necessity of labor to 
every citizen. There is virtue yet in the hoe and the 
spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands. 
And labor is everywhere welcome ; always we are 
invited to work ; only be this limitation observed, 
that a man shall not for the sake of wider activ- 
ity sacrifice any opinion to the popular judgments 
and modes of action. 

I have now spoken of the education of the 



THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 101 

scholar by nature, by books, and by action. It re- 
mains to say soniewliat of his duties. 

They are such as become Man Thinking. They 
may all be comprised in self-trust. The office of 
the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men ^ 
by showing them facts amidst appearances. He 
plies the slow, unhonored, and unpaid task of ob- 
servation. Flamsteed and Herschel, in their 
glazed observatories, may catalogue the stars with . 
the praise of all men, and the results being si^len- 
did and usefid, honor is sure. But he, in his pri- 
vate observatory, cataloguing obscure and nebulous 
stars of the human mind, which as yet no man has 
thought of as such, — watching days and months 
sometimes for a few facts ; correcting still his old 
records ; — must relinquish display and immediate 
fame. In the long period of his preparation he 
must betray often an ignorance and shiftlessness in 
popular arts, incurring the disdain of the able who 
shoulder him aside. Long'he must stammer in his 
speech ; often forego the living for the dead. 
Worse yet, he must accept, — how often ! poverty 
and solitude.^ For the ease and pleasure of tread- 
ing the old road, accepting the fashions, the educa- 
tion, the religion of society, he takes the cross of 
making his own, and, of course, the self-accusation, 
the faint heart, the frequent uncertainty and loss 
of time, which are the nettles and tangling vines in 



102 THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 

tlio way of the self-relying and self-directed; and 
the state of virtnal hostility in which he seems to 
stand to society, and especially to edncated society. 
For all this loss and scorn, what offset? lie is to 
find consolation in exercising the highest functions 
of hnnian natnre. ITc is one who raises himself 
from j)rivate considerations and breathes and lives 
on public and Illustrious thoughts, lie is the 
world's eye. 1 Ic is the world's heart. lie is to re- 
sist the vulgar prosperity that reti-ogrades ever to 
barbarism, by preserving and communicating heroic 
sentiments, noble biographies, melodious verse, and 
the conclusions of hlstmy. AVhatsoevcr oracles 
the human heart, in all emergencies, in all solemn 
hours, has uttered as its commentary on the world 
of actions, — these he shall receive and impart. 
And whatsoever new vei'dict Reason from her in- 
violable seat pronounces on the passing men and 
events of to-day, — this he shall hear and promul- 
gate. 

These being his functions, it becomes him to feel 
all contidence in himself, and to defer never to the 
po]»ular ciy. lie and he only knows the world. 
The world of any moment is the merest appearance. 
Some great decorum, some fetish of a government, 
some ephemeral trade, or war, or man, is cried Tip 
by half mankind and cried down by the other half, 
as if all depended on this particular up or down. 



THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. lO^" 

The odds are that the whole question is not worth 
the poorest thought which the scholar has lost in 
listening to the controversy. Let him not quit his 
belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the ancient 
and honoral)lc of" the earth afifirm it to be the crack 
of doom. In silence, in steadiness, in severe ab- 
straction, let him hold by himself ; add observation 
to observation, patient of neglect, patient of re- 
proach, and bide his own time, — hajipy enough if 
he can satisfy himself alone that this day he has 
seen something truly. Success treads on every right 
step. For the instinct is sure, that prompts him to 
tell his brother what he thinks. lie then learns 
that in going down into the secrets of his own mind 
he has descended into the secrets of all minds, i le 
learns that he who has mastered any law in his pri- 
vate thoughts, is master to that extent of all men 
whose language he speaks, and of all into whose 
language his own can be translated. The poet, in 
utter solitude remembering his spontaneous thoughts 
and recording them, is found to have recorded that 
which men in crowded cities find true for them also. 
The orator distrusts at first the fitness of his frank 
confessions, his want of knowledge of the persons 
he addresses, until he finds that he is the comple- 
ment of his hearers ; — that they drink his words 
because he fulfils for them their own nature ; the 
deeper he dives into his privatest, secretest pre- 



104 TllK AMi:iilCA.\ SCllOl.AH. 

st»nti»UMit, to his wondrr ho I'lnils (Ins is tho most 
lUHH^ptaUhN most puhlii', ami univorsally tnu>. Tho 
pooph^ th^Uii'ht ill it: tho hottor jvirt of every man 
fools. This is my miisio ; this is mysolf. 

Ill st^lf-tnist all tlu> virtuos aro oompit>lioiuloil. 
l''rot> shoiiUl {\\o solu>lar bo, — froo aiul bravo. Fitn^ 
tMoii to tlu> (h^linition t>f fiooilom, " without any 
hiiulranoo tliat iloos not arise ont of his own oonsti- 
tiition." lUavo; ft>r foar is a thiiiii' whioh a soholar 
by his voiv fiiuotion puts lH>liiiul him. Foar always 
spriiiii's from ijiiioranoo. It is a shame to him if his 
traiupiillity, ami»l ilaiii^orous times, arise from the 
pivsnmption that like ohiKlren ami women his is 
a pri>toetod ohiss ; i>r if ho seek a toiiiporary poaeo 
by tho ili version i>f his thony,hts from pt>litios or 
vexoil ipiostions, hiilin<;- his head likt* an ostrioh 
in tho tloworing' bushes, pooping" into miori>soopos, 
aiul tiunlni; rhymes, as a bov whistles to keep his 
i'oma«iV np. 80 is tlio dani;xn" a ihinuor still : si> is 
tho foar worse. Manlike lot him tnrn ami faoe it. 
Let him look into its eye ami soareh its natmv, in- 
speot its ori>;in, — see the wliolpin«i' of this lion, — 
whioli lies no i:reat wav baok ; he will tJien timl iu 
himself a porfoet eompivhonsion of its natnit> and 
extent; ho will have made his hands inoet on the 
other side, and oan henoeforth defy it and pass on 
sn^vrior. The world is his who oan see throiiiih its 
pivtension. ^^'hat deafness, what stone-blinil ens- 



THE AMKiaCAN HCIIOLAli. 105 

torn, what overgrown (irror you holiolfl i'h thore only 
by 8uff(;ranco, — Ijy your KuffV-ranco. See it tf> be a 
lie, and you hav<j already dealt it itH mortal blow. 

YeH, we are the eowe<l, — we the truHtlesH. It is 
a miHchievouH notion that we are i'Mxmt hiUt into unr 
ture ; that the world waw finished a long time ago. 
Ah the world was pbistie and fluid in the handH of 
God, 8o it is ever t^> «o mueh of hin attributes as we 
Vning to it. To ignoranwi and sin, it is flint. They 
a<lapt themselveH to it as they may; but in propor- 
tion as a man yms any thing in him divine, the fir- 
mament flows before him and takes his signet and 
form. Not he is great who can alter matter, but 
he who can alter my state of mind. They are the 
kings of the world who give the eolor of their pres- 
ent thought t<^> all nature and all art, and persua^le 
men by the eheerful serenity of their carrying the 
miitter, tliat this thing which they do is the apple 
which the ages have desired to pluck, now at last 
ripe, and inviting nations to the harvest. 'I'he great 
man makes the great thing. Wherever Ma/;donald 
sits, there is the head of the table. Linnaeus makes 
botany the most alluring of studies, and wins it from 
the farmer and the herb-woman ; Davy, chemistry; 
and Cuvier, fossils. The day is always his who 
works in it with serenity and great aims. The un- 
stable estimat^is of men crowd t^j him whose mind 
is filled with a tnith, as the heaped waves of the 
Atlantic follow the moon. 



106 THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 

For this self-trust, the reason is deeper than can 
be fathomed, — darker than can be enlightened. 
I might not carry with me the feeling of my au- 
dience in stating my own belief. But I have al- 
ready shown the ground of my hope, in adverting 
to the doctrine that man is one. I believe man has 
been wronged ; he has wronged himself. He has 
almost lost the light that can lead him back to his 
prerogatives. Men are become of no account. Men 
in history, men in the world of to-day, are bugs, are 
spawTi, and are called " the mass " and " the herd." 
In a century, in a millennium, one or two men ; 
that is to say, one or two approximations to the 
right state of every man. All the rest behold in 
the hero or the poet their own green and crude 
being, — ripened ; yes, and are content to be less, 
so that may attain to its full statm-e. What a testi- 
mony, full of grandeur, full of pity, is borne to the 
demands of his own nature, by the poor clansman, 
the poor partisan, who rejoices in the glory of liis 
chief. The poor and the low find some amends to 
their immense moral capacity, for their acquies- 
cence in a political and social inferiority. They 
are content to be brushed like flies from the path 
of a great person, so that justice shall be done by 
him to that common nature which it is the dearest 
desire of all to see enlarged and glorified. They 
sun themselves in the great man's light, and feel it 



THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 107 

to be their own element. They cast the dignity of 
man from their downtrod selves upon the shoulders 
of a hero, and will perish to add one drop of blood 
to make that great heart beat, those giant sinews 
combat and conquer. He lives for us, and we live 
in him. 

Men such as they are, very naturally seek money 
or power ; and power because it is as good as money, 
— the " spoils," so called, " of office." And why 
not? for they aspire to the highest, and this, in 
their sleep-walking, they dream is highest. Wake 
them and they shall qidt the false good and leap to 
the true, and leave governments to clerks and desks. 
Tliis revolution is to be wrought by the gradual do- 
mestication of the idea of Culture. The main en- 
terprise of the world for splendor, for extent, is the 
upbuilding of a man. Here are the materials 
strewn along the ground. The private life of one 
man shall be a more illustrious monarchy, more 
formidable to its enemy, more sweet and serene in 
its influence to its friend, than any kingdom in his- 
tory. For a man, rightly viewed, comprehendeth 
the particular natures of all men. Each philoso- 
pher, each bard, each actor has only done for me, 
as by a delegate, what one day I can do for myself. 
The books which once we valued more than the 
apple of the eye, we have quite exliausted. What 
is that but saying that we have come up with the 



108 THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 

point of view which the universal mind took thi-ongh 
the eyes of one scribe ; we liave been that man, aiul 
have passed on. First, one, then another, we drain 
all cisterns, and waxing greater by all these sn^v 
plies, we oi*ave a better and more abundant food. 
The man has never lived that can feed us ever. 
The human mind cannot be enshrined in a person 
who shall set a barrier on any one side to this un- 
bounded, unboiuidable empire. It is one central 
fire, which, tiamiug now out of the lips of Etna, light- 
ens the capes of Sicily, and now out of the throat 
of Vesuvius, illuminates the towers and ^dnevards 
of Naples. It is one light which beams out of a 
thousand stars. It is one soid which animates 
all men. 

But I have dwelt perhaps tediously upon this ab- 
straction of the Scholar. I ought not to delay 
longer to add what I have to say of nearer i-ef ei-ence 
to the time and to this country. 

Historically, thei-e is thought to be a diffei-ence 
in the ideas which pi-edominate over successive 
epochs, and thei-e ai-e data for marking the genius 
of the Classic, of the Komantic, and now of the Ke- 
flective or Philosophical ag"e. With the views I 
have intunated of the oneness or the identity of the 
mind through all individuals, I do not much dwell 
on these dilfeivnces. In fact, I believe each indi- 



THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 109 

vidual passes through all three. The boy is a Greek ; 
the youth, romantic ; the adult, reflective. I deny 
not however that a revolution in the leading idea 
may be distinctly enough traced. 

Our age is bewailed as the age of Introversion. 
Must that needs be evil? We, it seems, are crit- 
ical ; we are embarrassed with second thoughts ; we 
cannot enjoy any thing for hankering to know 
wdiereof the pleasure consists ; we are lined wdth 
eyes ; we see with our feet ; the time is infected 
with Hamlet's unhappiness, — 

" Sicklied o'er with the pale east of thought." 

It is so bad then ? Sight is the last thing to be 
pitied. Would we be blind ? Do we fear lest we 
should outsee nature and God, and drink truth 
dry? I look upon the discontent of the literary 
class as a mere announcement of the fact that they 
find themselves not in the state of mind of their 
fathers, and regret the coming state as untried ; as 
a boy dreads the water before he has learned that 
he can swim. If there is any period one would de- 
sire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution ; 
when the old and the new stand side by side and 
admit of being compared ; when the energies of all 
men are searched by fear and by hope ; when the 
historic glories of the old can be compensated by 
the rich possibilities of the new era ? This time, 



110 Tut: a-ur/.v'(M.v srnoi.Ait. 

lllvo nil timos, is n vtM-y ji'otul o\u\ it" wo but know 
whni l(< (1*> with it. 

1 I'oail with somo joy of tho imspioious siij,'us of 
tho (Oiniiii;- iluvs, as tht\v ulinunor aln»:ulv tln'oui^h 
juu^trv iviul art, thioui^h [ihilosoi)hY :uul simoiu-o, 
ihrouiih t'luirrh ami stat»\ 

(^lu* oi tlu^so si«i'j>s is tin* f:u'i thai tho snmo 
iuoviMmM\t whii'h t^tYootoil tho olovation oi what was 
i*alh'(l i\\c lowi^st class in the stato, assnuunl in lit- 
lU'aturo a \(M'v ni:>.rUoil anil as luMiii^n an aspoct. 
Instoatl »»t" tht> snhlinu* aiul hoantifnl, tho noar, tho 
low, tho oomnion, was t^xploroil anil j>iH>ti/oil. That 
whioh hail boon nonlis;ontly troihlon inulor foot by 
thoso who wiMO havnossing' anil provisionini^' thoni- 
solvos fi>r loi\<;' jinivnoys ii\to far I'ountrios, is sntl- 
ilonly fonml to bo riohor than all foiviun parts. 
Tho litoratnrt» o( tho poor, tho fiH>lin<;s of tho I'hilil, 
(ho philosophy of tho stivot, tho moaning- of honst^ 
hold lifo, avt> tho topios of tho tinu\ It is a ii'voat 
strido. It is a si<>'n, — is it not? oi now viii\>r 
whon tho oxtroniitios aro niailo aotivo, whon oni*- 
ronts of warm lifo vnn into tho hands ami tho foot. 
I ask not for tho i;roat, tho rotnoto, tho ri>mantio ; 
what is doiny," in Italy or Arabia ; what is (uvok 
art, or rrovoni;al minstivlsy ; 1 ombraoo tho com- 
mon. 1 oxploro and sit at tho foot of tho familiar, 
tho low. (uvo mo insight into tiMlay, and you 
may havo tho antiqno and fntniv worlds. What 



THE AMJ:IUC'AN sen OLA IL 111 

woiilrl w<; r«;aJly know tlic nuianiug of ? 'I'fKi rnf;al 
in tliij firkin ; tfi<; i/iiJk in th<; pan ; th<; l>albi<l in 
ihii ¥>ivi'Mt ; i\ui newH of tli/j boat ; ttuj gkn/j^; of th<i 
ey<} ; tlir; forni and ilm gait of tiwj body ; — kIitjw 
rn<; tlio ultimate reanon of th/jwj maXtam ; 81k>w nitj 
tlifi Hublinjo i>r(iiHin('Ai of tiie higlient Hpiritual <;aui><i 
lurking, an alwayK it d^>eK lurk, in tli^jse KuJiurl^s 
and extremities of nature; Ifjt me aaa avury tniUi 
bri-stling with tlm polarity tliat ranges it iristantly 
on an <;t<;rnal kw : and the shop, tlwi ploTigh, and 
the hi<lger refene<l U> tlwj i'tka nniMih by whu;h light 
uudulat<is and jK>etH wing ; — and the worhl lies no 
longer a dull miwjellany anrl lumber-room, but lias 
form and ord<;r ; tlujre m no tniia, tlicre in no pu;^ 
zle, but one design unitfjs ami animators the far- 
thest pinna<:hi and the lowest tmimlu 

This idea lias inspir<}<l tliifj geniuii of Goldsmith, 
Bums, Cowper, an<l, in a newer time, of Gr>ethe, 
\\Vjrdsworth, and Carlyhi. 1"hi« uhiH they liave 
diffVjrently follow<j<l and with various HUfj-Jim. In 
rx^ntrast with their writing, the styhj of l*o\Hi, (d 
Johns^jn, of Ciibbon, looks ex>I/l and ixabmt'uu 
Tbirt writing is bhxxl-warm. Man Is sur^irlsefl to 
find tliat things near are iu)t htm beautiful and 
wondrous than things remot<^ The near explains 
the far. The drop is a small oc^;an. A man in 
relate^l to all nature. This pjrf^iption of the worth 
of the vulgar is fruitful in db>fx>veries. Goetli/:;, in 



112 THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 

tliis very thing the most modern of the modems, 
has shown us, as none ever did, the genius of the 
ancients. 

There is one man of genius who has done much 
for this philosophy of life, whose literary value has 
never yet been rightly estimated ; — I mean Eman- 
uel Swedenborg. The most imaginative of men, 
yet writing with the precision of a mathematician, 
he endeavored to engraft a purely philosophical 
Ethics on the popular Clu'istianity of his time. 
Such an attempt of course must have difficulty 
which no genius could surmount. But he saw and 
showed the connection between nature and the af- 
fections of the soul. He pierced the emblematic 
or spiritual character of the visible, audible, tangi- 
ble world. Especially did his shade-loving muse 
hover over and interpret the lower parts of nature ; 
he showed the mysterious bond that allies moral 
evil to the foul material forms, and has given in 
epical parables a theory of insanity, of beasts, of 
unclean and fearful things. 

Another sign of our times, also marked by an 
analogous political movement, is the new impor- 
tance given to the single person. Every thing that 
tends to insulate the individual, — to surround him 
with barriers of natural respect, so that each man 
shall feel the world is his, and man shall treat with 
man as a sovereign state with a sovereign state, 



THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 113 

— tends to true union as well as greatness, " I 
learned," said the melancholy Pestalozzi, " that no 
man in God's wide earth is either willing or able to 
help any other man." Help must come from the 
bosom alone. The scholar is that man who must 
take up into liimself all the ability of the time, all 
the contributions of the past, all the hopes of the 
future. He must be an university of knowledges. 
If there be one lesson more than another which 
should pierce his ear, it is, The world is nothing, 
the man is all ; in yourself is the law of all na- 
ture, and you know not yet how a globule of sap 
ascends ; in yourself slumbers the whole of Rea- 
son ; it is for you to know all ; it is for you to dare 
all. Mr. President and Gentlemen, this confi- 
dence in the misearched might of man belongs, by 
all motives, by all prophecy, by all preparation, 
to the American Scholar. We have listened too 
long to the courtly muses of Europe. The spirit 
of the American freeman is already suspected to 
be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private ava- 
rice make the air we breathe tliick and fat. The 
scholar is decent, indolent, complaisant. See al- 
ready the tragic consequence. The mind of this 
country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon it- 
self. There is no work for any but the decorous 
and the complaisant. Young men of the fairest 
promise, who begin life upon our shores, inflated 

VOL. I. 8 



114 THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 

l\y the momitain winds, sliinod upon by all the stars 
of Goil, find the earth below not in iuiist)n with 
these, bnt are hindered from action by the disgnst 
whii'h the principles on whii'li bnsiness is man- 
aged inspire, and turn drmlges, or die of disgust, 
some of them suicides. \\ hat is the remedy ? 
They did not yet see, and thousands of young' men 
as ho|)eful now crowding to the barriers for the 
career do not yet see, that if the single man plant 
himself indomitably on his instincts, and there 
abide, the huge world will come round to him. 
Patience, — patience ; with the shades of all the 
good and great for company ; and for solace the 
perspective of your own infinite life ; and for work 
the study and the comnumieation of principles, 
the making those instincts prevalent, the conver- 
sion of the world. Is it not the chief disgrace 
in the world, not to be an unit ; — not to be reck- 
oned one character ; — not to yield that peculiar 
fruit which each man was created to bear, but to 
be reckoned in the gross, in the himdi'ed, or the 
thousand, of the party, the section, to which we be- 
long ; and our opinion predicted geographically, as 
the north, or the south ? Not so, brothers and 
friends, — please God, ours shall not be so. We 
will walk on oui- own feet ; we will work with our 
own hands ; wo will speak our own minds. The 
study of letters shall be no longer a name for pity, 



THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 115 

for doubt, and for sensual indulgence. The dread 
of man and the love of man shall be a wall of de- 
fence and a wreath of joy around aU. A nation of 
men will for the first time exist, because each be- 
lieves himself inspired by the Divine Soul which 
also inspires all men. 



AX ADDRESS 

JjELlVEJiED BHFOKK THJJ SKMOU CLASS IK DIVIKITY COLLE/dE, 
' CAMJ}K11k;K, SI3JL*a1' EVEKIiO, JULY L5, lii3». 



ADDRESS. 



In this refulgent summer, it has been a luxury 
to draw the breath of life. The grass grows, the 
buds burst, the meadow is spotted with fire and 
gold in the tint of flowers. The air is full of birds, 
and sweet with the breath of the pine, the balm-of- 
Gilead, and the new hay. Night brings no gloom 
to the heart with its welcome shade. Throuoh the 
transparent darkness the stars pour their almost 
spiritual rays. Man under them seems a young 
child, and his huge globe a toy. The cool night 
bathes the world as with a river, and prejjares his 
eyes again for the crimson dawn. The mystery of 
nature was never displayed more happily. The 
corn and the wine have been freely dealt to all 
creatures, and the never-broken silence with which 
the old bounty goes forward has not jaelded yet 
one word of explanation. One is constrained to 
respect the perfection of this world in wliich oiu' 
senses converse. How wide ; how rich ; what in\d- 
tation from every property it gives to every faculty 
of man ! In its fruitful soils ; in its navigable sea ; 



120 ADDRESS. 

in its mountains of metal and stone ; in its forests 
of all woods ; in its animals ; in its chemical ingre- 
dients ; in tlie powers and patli of light, heat, at- 
traction and life, it is well worth the pith and 
heart of great men to subdue and enjoy it. The 
planters, the mechanics, the inventors, the astrono- 
mers, the builders of cities, and the captains, his- 
tory delights to honor. 

But when the mind opens and reveals the laws 
which traverse the universe and make things what 
they are, then shrinks the great world at once into 
a mere illustration and fable of this mind. What 
am I ? and What is ? asks the hiunan spirit with a 
curiosity new-kindled, but never to be quenched. 
Behold these outrunning laws, which our imperfect 
apprehension can see tend this way and that, but 
not come fidl circle. Behold these infinite rela- 
tions, so like, so unlUce ; many, yet one. I would 
study, I woidd know, I would admire forever. 
These works of thought have been the entertain- 
ments of the hiunan spirit in all ages. 

A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty 
appears to man when his heart and mind open to 
the sentiment of virtue. Then he is mstructed in 
what is above him. He learns that his being is 
without bound ; that to the good, to the perfect, he 
is born, low as he now lies in evU. and weakness. 
That which he venerates is still his own, though he 



ADDRESS. 121 

has not realized it yet. He ought. He loiows the 
sense of that grand word, though his analysis fails 
to render account of it. When in innocency or 
when by intellectual perception he attains to say, — 
" I love the Eight ; Truth is beautif id within and 
without forevermore. Virtue, I am thine ; save 
me ; use me ; thee will I serve, day and night, in 
great, in small, that I may be not virtuous, but vir- 
tue ; " — then is the end of the creation answered, 
and God is well pleased. 

The sentiment of virtue is a reverence and de- 
light in the presence of certain di\ane laws. It per- 
ceives that this homely game of life we play, covers, 
under what seem foolish details, principles that as- 
tonish. The child amidst his baubles is learning 
the action of light, motion, gravity, muscular force ; 
and in the game of human life, love, fear, justice, 
appetite, man, and God, interact. These laws re- 
fuse to be adequately stated. They will not be 
wi'itten out on paper, or spoken by the tongiie. 
They elude om^ persevering thought ; yet we read 
them hourly in each other's faces, in each other's ac- 
tions, in our own remorse. The moral traits which 
are all globed into every virtuous act and thought, 
— in speech we must sever, and describe or suggest 
by painful enumeration of many particulars. Yet, 
as this sentiment is the essence of all religion, let 
me guide your eye to the precise objects of the sen- 



122 ADDRESS. 

timent, by an enumeration of some of those classes 
of facts in whicli this clement is conspicuous. 

The intuition of the moral sentiment is an in- 
sight of the perfection of the laws of the soul. 
These laws execute themselves. They are out of 
time, out of space, and not subject to circumstance. 
Thus in the soul of man there is a justice whose 
retributions are instant and entire. He who does 
a good deed is instantly ennobled. He who does 
a mean deed is by the action itself contracted. He 
who puts off impurity, thereby puts on purity. If 
a man is at heart just, then in so far is he God ; 
the safety of God, the immortality of God, the 
majesty of God do enter into that man with justice. 
If a man dissemble, deceive, he deceives himself, 
and goes out of acquaintance witli his o^vn being. 
A man in the view of absolute goodness, adores, 
with total humility. Every step so downward, is a 
step upward. The man who renounces himself, 
comes to himself. 

See how this rapid intrinsic energy worketh 
everywhere, righting wrongs, correcting appear- 
ances, and bringing up facts to a harmony with 
thoughts. Its o})eration in life, though slow to the 
senses, is at last as sure as in the soul. By it a 
man is made the Providence to himself, dispensing 
good to his goodness, and evil to his sin. Character 
is always known. Thefts never enrich ; alms never 



ADDRESS. 123 

inipoverisli ; murder will speak out of stone walls. 
The least admixture of a lie, — for example, the 
taint of vanity, any attempt to make a good impres- 
sion, a favorable appearance, — will instantly vi- 
tiate the effect. But speak the truth, and all na- 
ture and all spirits help you with imexpected 
furtherance. Speak the truth, and all things alive 
or brute are vouchers, and the very roots of the 
grass underground there do seem to stir and move 
to bear you witness. See again the perfection of 
the Law as it applies itself to the affections, and 
becomes the law of society. As we are, so we as- 
sociate. The good, by affinity, seek the good ; the 
vile, by affinity, the vile. Thus of their own voli- 
tion, soids proceed into heaven, into hell. 

These facts have always suggested to man the 
sublime creed that the world is not the product of 
manifold power, but of one will, of one mind ; and 
that one mind is everywhere active, in each ray of 
the star, in each wavelet of the pool ; and what- 
ever opposes that will is everywhere balked and 
baffled, because things are made so, and not other- 
wise. Good is positive. Evil is merely privative, 
not absolute : it is like cold, which is the privation 
of heat. All evil is so much death or nonentity. 
Benevolence is absolute and real. So much bene- 
volence as a man hath, so much life hath he. For 
all things proceed out of this same spirit, which is 



1-24 ADDRESS. 

differentl}' named lovo, justice, temporanoe, in its 
different ai)plleations, just as the oeean receives 
different names on the sevei'al shores whicli it 
washes. All things proceed out of the same spirit, 
and all things conspire with it. AA'hilst a man 
seeks good ends, he is strong by the whole strength 
of natui'e. In so far as he roves from these ends, 
he bereaves himself of power, or auxiliaries ; his 
being shrinks out of all remote channels, he be- 
comes less and less, a mote, a point, until absolute 
badness is absolute death. 

The perception of this law of laws awakens in 
the mind a sentiment which we call the reliiiious 
sentiment, :uul whu-h makes our highest happiness. 
Wonderful is its power to charm anil to com- 
mand. It is a mountain air. It is the embalmer 
of the world. It is myrrh antl storax, and chlorine 
and rosemary. It makes the sky and the hills sub- 
lime, and the silent song of the stars is it. By it 
is the universe made safe and habitable, not by 
science or power. Thought may work cold and in- 
transitive in things, and tind no end or unity ; but 
the dawn of the sentiment of \nrtue on the heart, 
gives and is the assurance that Law is sovereign 
over all natures ; and the worlds, time, space, eter- 
; nity, do seem to break out into joy. 

This sentiment is divine and deifvin<r. It is 
the beatitude of man. It makes him illimitable. 



ADDRESS. 125 

Thiongh it, the soul first knows itself. It corrects 
the capital mistake of the infant man, who seeks to 
be great by following the great, and hopes to de- 
rive advantages from another^ — by showing the 
fountain of aU good to be in himself, and that he, 
equally with every man, is an inlet into the deeps 
of Reason. When he says, " I ought ; " when love 
warms him ; when he chooses, warned from on 
high, the good and great deed ; then, deep melodies 
wander through his soul from Supreme Wisdom. 
— Then he can worship, and be enlarged by his 
worship ; for he can never go behind this senti- 
ment. In tlie sublimest flights of the soul, recti- 
tude is never surmounted, love is never outgrown. 

This sentiment lies at the foundation of society, 
and successively creates all forms of worship. Tlie 
principle of veneration never dies out. Man fallen 
into superstition, into sensuality, is never quite 
without the visions of the moral sentiment. In like 
manner, all the expressions of this sentiment are 
sacred and permanent in proportion to their purity. 
The expressions of this sentiment affect us more 
than all other compositions. The sentences of the 
oldest time, which ejaculate this piety, are still 
fresh and fragrant. This thought dwelled always 
deepest in the minds of men in the devout and con- 
templative East; not alone in Palestine, where it 
reached its purest expression, but in Egj^t, in 



Persia, in liulia, in (Miiua. l^an'ojx* has always 
o\\{h\ Io oiitMilal y'cjiius its <livini> inipulst's. \\'liafc 
tlu>st> ln)ly haids said, all saiu' iikmi round a^ivt>al)lo 
and tint'. And (ln> nni(ini' inn)rt>ssioii ol" dt^sus 
nju>n inauKind, wliost^ nan\t" is not so mnt'li wiittiMi 
as |dounlu>d into the hist()rv ol this worKl, is [irool' 
ol" till' sul»tlt> virtno ol' this inl'usion. 

Mt*antinu>, whilst the doors i>r th(> ttMn|>h> stand 
o[HM\, nii;ht and day, hi>l"oi'(> t^vcry nian, and tho 
orat'K'S of tl\is tiiith coast^ n(>vor, it is «;uar(hHl by 
on»> st Mil condition; this, nanndy ; it is an intui- 
tion. It cannttt ho rocoivod at^ second hand. 'I'ruly 
s|H*aUin;4\ it is not inslrni'tion, hut provocation, that 
1 can receive iVoin another st)nl. W hat he an- 
nounces, 1 i\uist lint! true in nu>, or r(>jeet; and on 
his word, or as his second, he he who \\c may, 1 can 
aeet>pt nothinj;'. ()n the I'ontrary, tlu< ahstMU'(> of 
this prinuiry faith is the i>resenc(> of (h\«ira«hdion. 
As is the Wood so is thi» ebb. Li't tins faith ih'part, 
and the very wonls it spaUt» atid the thinii's it made 
bei'onie false an<l hurtful. TIumi falls the churi'h, 
tlu» state, art, letters, life. The tloetrlne oi tlu> 
divine nature beini;- forpitten, a sickness infects 
and dwarfs the constitution. ()nc(* nian was all; 
now he is ;in appendage, a nuisance. And Ix^ 
cause the indwidliti>i" Supvenie Spirit cannot wholly 
be s;"ot rid (>f, the doctrim^ of it sutVers this perver- 
sion, that Uie divine nature is attributed to one or 



AlfDIU'lSS. 127 

two p(!rHonH, and (htnicd to all tlio roHt, and di^riicd 
with liiiy. 'l'l»'; doctriiKs of inH|)iration Ih lost; tlic; 
}jaH(i doctriru! of the tn.'ijoiily of voi(!OH uHiirj)H tlio 
plafio of tluj do(;trin(! of the Honl. Mirach^H, proph- 
oey, poetry, the ich^al lif(j, the lioly lif(!, exint aH an- 
(jient liiHtory in(;fely ; tlx-y Jiic not in the h(tli(;f, 
nor in the aHpiration of Ho(M<jty ; hut, when Hn\r,- 
g(!Hted, Heem ridiculous. I>if«! in (;otnic or' j)itifid 
as HOOD aw the hij^h <;ndH of hein;; fad(! out of Hi^^Jit, 
and man heeomeH near-sij^hte^d, and (;an oidy at- 
tend to what addrewHen the HenH(!B. 

TheHC general viewH, which, whilKt th(!y are gen- 
eral, non(; will <;onteHt, find abundant illuHtration in 
the liiHtory of rtiligion, and eHjXieially in tlH; history 
of the ('hristian (thiireh. In that, all of UH luive 
ha<l our hiith and nurtnic TIk} truth (tontained 
in that, you, my young fritjuds, an; now setting 
forth to t<!;(ch. As th(t CultuH, or estahlished wor- 
KJiip of th<; (!ivili/ed world, it haH gn^at historieal 
intercHt for uh. Of it« IdesHed words, whi<rh hav<i 
been the eonsolation of luMnanity, you need not 
that I should speak. I .hall (Mideavor to discharge 
rny duty to you on this o(;easion, hy pointing out 
two errors in itn a<lniinistration, which dally aj)p(;ar 
more gross from the [)oint of view we have just 
now taken. 

Jesus ("hrist Ixilonged to the true raf!C of proph- 
ets, lie saw with open eye the niystery of the 



soul. nr:i\vi\ bv its soveiv hnvmonv, ravisluHl with 
its boautv, ho livoil in it, and h;ul liis biMu*;' thoro, 
Ahnio ill all history ho ostimatotl tho iiivatnoss of 
man. Ouo man was tiuo to what is in y»nj ami 
mo. Ho saw that (u>il im'arnatos himsolt" in man, 
and OYonmnv goos t\>rth anow io takt^ possossiim 
of his W^u'ld. llo said, in this jubiloo oi sulv. 
limo ouuuion, * I am diviuo. Thivuii'h mo, (uhI 
ftots; thixmgh mo, spoaks. Would you see God^ 
soo mo ; or soo tJioo, whon thon also thiukost as I 
ni>w think.' Hut what a distortion did his doctrine 
and momorv sntYor in tho samo, in tho next, juul 
tho tollowinir aiivs ! Thoiv is no dootrino of tho 
Roas(>n whioh will hoar to ho tauiiht hv tho Undoiv 
st^vndinsi-. Tho vmdoi'standinir oauiiht this hii;h 
ohant i'lvm tlio poot's lips, and said, in tho noxt 
aii'o, * This wus .lohovah oomo dow u out oi hoavon. 
1 will kill you, it" you say ho was a man.' Tho 
idioms of his lan^iiaiiv and tho tiiiiuvs of his 
rhotorio havo nsnrpod tho phioo of his truth : and 
olmrohos aiv not built on his pi-inoiplos, but on his 
tix>pos. Christianitv btvamo a My thus, as tho pi>- 
otio teaching of (nveco ami of Hgypt, bofoiv. llo 
sjH^ke oi miracles ; for he folt that man's life >Yas a 
miracle, and all that man doth, and ho knew that 
this daily miracle sliinos as tho character ascends. 
But the wonl Miracle, as pronoimcod by Christian 
chnivhos, gives a false impression ; it is Monster. 



AnnriESS. 129 

It ifi not onfi with thw blowing clover and the falling 
rain. 

iJe felt respect for Moses ami the prophets, but 
no unfit t^indemess at postponing their initial reve- 
lations U) the liour and the nuin tliat now is ; to the 
eteiTial revelation in the heart. Thus was he a tnxe 
man. Halving haan tliat th<; Liw in us is w>mniand- 
ing, he would not suffer it \/> he Cf^rnrnanded- 
iioldly, with liand, and heart, and life, he de^;lared 
it was God. 'I'lius is he, as I tliink, the only soul 
ill hist<jry who has appr<iciat<id the worth of man. 

1. In tills point of view we bec^jme sensible of 
the first defect of hist^^rical Christianity, ilistriri- 
ical Christianity has fallen into the error tliat 
wjrrupts all attf^mpts i/t w>mnmnicate religion. As 
it appears to uis, and as it luas appeared for ages, 
it is not the doctrine of the soul, Ijut an exag- 
geration of tlie personal, the positive, the ritual. 
It lias dwelt, it dwelbi, with noxious exaggera- 
tion aV>out the perHon of Jesus. The soul knows 
no persons. It invites every man to expand U) 
the full circle of the universe, and will liave no 
preferences Imt those of spontaneous love. But by 
tliis eastera monarchy of a Christianity, which in- 
dolence and fear have built, the fiiend of man is 
made the injurer of man. The manner in which 
his name is surroundwl with expressions which 
were once sallies of admiration and love, but are 

VOL. I. 9 



130 ADDRESS. 

now potriiitHl into offii'iiil titlos, kills all j>onorou3 
sympatic ami likiu>;'. All who hoar luo, fool that 
tho langiiai;o that tloscribes Christ to Enropo ami 
Amovica is not tho stylo ot" t'riondsliip ami outhusi- 
asni to a good and ni>l)lo hoart, bnt is ai^propriatotl 
ami t'onual, — paints a tlomigml, as tho OriontjUs 
or tho (h'ooks wmihl dosovibo Osiris or Apolli>. 
Aceopt tho injurions impositions of our early eat- 
oohotioal instruotion, ami t>\c>n honesty and self- 
donial wove bnt splontlid sins, if they did not woiu* 
tho riuistian name. One wtmld rather be 

" A pasjivn, siickUnl in a oitHnl oiitworn," 

than to be defvanded of his manly right in eoming into 
natnre and tiuding' not names and phu'os, not land 
and })V(>fossions, bnt oven virtne and truth foreclosed 
uud tuoni>polii:od. Yon shall not bo a nian even. 
You shall not own tho world; you shall not dare 
and live after the intinito Law that is in yuu. and 
in eonxpany with the intuiito Beauty whioh heaven 
and earth retloi't to you in all lovely forms ; but 
you nuist subi)rdinato your nature to C^hrist's na- 
tun> ; you nuist accept our intorpretiitions, and take 
his portrait as the \iilgar draNV it. 

That is alwavs best whioh gives me to mvsolf. 
The sublime is excited in mo by tho great stoical 
doctrine. Obey thyself. That which shows (lod in 
me, fortitios mo. That which shows (rod out of me, 



ADDRESS. 131 

makes me a wart and a wen. There is no longer a 
necessary reason for my being. Already the long 
sliadows of untimely oblivion creep over me, and 1 
sliall decease forever. 

The divine bards are the friends of my virtue, 
of my intellect, of my strengtli. They admonish 
me that the gleams whi(;h flash across my mind are 
not mine, but God's ; that they liad the like, and 
were not disobedient to the heavenly visi<jn. So I 
love them. Noljle provocations go out from them, 
inviting me to resist evil ; to sulxlue the world ; 
and to Be. And thus, by his holy thoughts, Jesus 
serves us, and thus only. To aim to convert a man 
by miracles, is a profanation of the soul. A true 
conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be 
made by the reception of beautiful sentiments. It 
is true tliat a great and ri(;h soul, like his, falling 
among the simjde, does so preponderate, that, as 
his did, it names the world. The world seems to 
them to exist for liim, and they have not yet drunk 
so deeply of his sense as to see that only by coming 
again to themselves, or to God in themselves, can 
they grow foreverraore. It is a low benefit to give 
me soraetliing ; it is a high benefit to enable me to 
do somewhat of myself. The time is coming when 
all men will see that the gift of God to the soul is 
not a vaunting, overpowering, excluding sanctity, 
but a sweet, natural goodness, a goodness like thine 



132 ADDRESS. 

aiul mine, and tliat so invites thine and mine to be 
antl to grow. 

The injustice of tlie vulgar tone of preaching- is 
not h>ss flagrant to Jesus than to the souls which it 
profanes. The preachers do not see that they make 
his gospel not glad, and shear him of the locks of 
beauty and the attributes of heaven. When I see 
a majestic Epaminondas, or Washington ; when I 
see among" my contemporaries a true orator, an up- 
right judge, a dear friend ; when I vibrate to the 
melody and fancy of a poem ; I see beauty tliat is 
to be desired. And so lovely, and with yet more 
entire consent of my human being, sounds in my 
ear the severe music of the bards that have sun<r of 
tlie true God in all ages. Now do not degrade the 
life and dialogues of Christ out of the circle of this 
charm, by insulation and pecidiarity. Let them lie 
as they befel, alive and warm, part of human life 
and of the landscape and of the cheerful day. 

2. The second defect of the traditionary and 
limited way of using the mind of Christ, is a conse- 
quence of the first ; tliis, namely ; tliat the Moral 
Nature, that Law of laws whose revelations intro- 
duce greatness, — yea, God himself, — into the 
open soul, is not explored as the fountain of the es- 
tablished teaching in society. Men have come to 
speak of tlie revelation as somewhat long ago given 
and done, as if God were dead. The injury to 



ADDRESS. 133 

faith throttles the preacher ; and the goodliest of 
institutions becomes an uncertain and inarticu- 
late voice. 

It is very certain that it is the effect of conversa- 
tion with the beauty of the soul, to beget a desire 
and need to impart to others the same knowledge 
and love. If utterance is denied, the thought lies 
like a burden on the man. Always the seer is a 
sayer. Somehow his dream is told ; somehow he 
puldishes it with solemn joy : sometimes with pen- 
cil on canvas, sometimes with chisel on stone, some- 
times in towers and aisles of granite, his soul's 
worshij) is builded ; sometimes in anthems of in- 
definite music ; but clearest and most permanent, 
in words. 

The man enamored of this excellency becomes its 
priest or poet. The office is coeval with the world. 
But observe the condition, the spiritual limitation 
of the office. The spirit only can teach. Not any 
profane man, not any sensual, not any liar, not any 
slave can teach, but only he can give, v.ho has ; he 
only can create, who is. The man on whom the 
soul descends, through whom the soul speaks, alone 
can teach. Courage, piety, love, wisdom, can t^ach ; 
and every man can open his door to these angels, 
and they shall bring him the gift of tongues. But 
the man who aims to speak as books enable, as syn- 
ods use, as the fashion guides, and as interest com- 
mands, babbles. Let him hush. 



[?A APDliESS. 

To this lu>ly offii'o you pvoposo to tlovote your- 
solvos. 1 \visli you may fiH'l your call iu throbs of 
desire aud hope. The oUtiee is the first in the 
worhl. It is of that reality that it eannot suffer 
tlie ileduetion of any falsehood. And it is my duty 
ti^ say to you that the need was never greater of 
new revelation than now. From the views I have 
already expressed, you will infer the sad convic- 
tion, whieh I share, 1 believe, with numbers, of the 
universal decay antl now almost death of faith in 
society. The soul is not preached. The C^hurch 
seems to totter to its fall, almost all life extinct. 
On this occasion, any com]daisancc wxinld be crim- 
inal whii'h told you, whose hope and commission it 
is to preach the faith of Christ, that the faith of 
Christ is preached. 

It is time that this ill-suppressed murnnu- of all 
thou«;htful men aj^ainst the famine of our churches ; 

— tliis moaning- of the heart because it is bereaved 
of the consolation, the hope, the grandeur that 
come alone out of the culture of the moral nature, 

— should be heard through the sleep of indolence, 
and over the din of routine. This great and per- 
petual oftii'c of the preacher is not discharged. 
Preaching is the expression o't the moral sentiment 
in application to the duties of life. In how many 
churches, by how many prophets, tell me, is man 
made sensible that he is an infinite Soul ; that tlie 



ADDRESS. 135 

earth and heavens are passinfj into his mind ; that 
he is drinking forever the soul of God ? Whore 
now sounds the persuasion, tliat by its very melody 
imparadises my heart, and so affirms its own origin 
in h(iaven? Where shall I hear words such as in 
elder ages drew men to leave all and follow, — 
fath(;r and mother, house and land, wife and child ? 
Where shall I hear these august laws of moral liC- 
ing so pronounced as to fill my ear, and I feel en- 
nobled by the offer of my uttermost acition and pas- 
sion ? The test of the true faith, certainly, should 
be its power to charm and command the soul, as 
the laws of nature control the a/;tivity of the hands, 
— HO commanding that we find pleasure and honor 
in obeying. The faith should blend with the light 
of rising and of setting suns, with the flying cloud, 
the singing bird, and the breath of flowers. But 
now the priest's Sabbath has lost the splendor of 
nature ; it is unlovely ; we are glad when it is done ; 
we can make, we do make, even sitting in our 
pews, a far better, holier, sweeter, for ourselves. 

Whenever the pulpit is usurped by a formalist, 
then is the worshipper defrauded and disconsolate. 
We shrink as soon as the prayers begin, which do 
not uplift, but smite and offend us. We are fain 
to wrap our cloaks about us, and secure, as best we 
can, a solitude that hears not. I once heard a 
preacher who sorely temjjtcd me to say I would go 



laO APPIiESS. 

to I'lmri'h no more. Men g"0, tlioii^lit 1, whore 
they are wont to i;o, else hail no sonl ontorod the 
temple in the afternoon. A snow-stonn was fall- 
ing aronnil ns. The snow-storm was real, the 
preaeher merely speetral, and the eye felt the sad 
eiuitrast in looking- at him, and then out of the 
window behind him into the beantilul meteor of 
the snow^ lie had lived in vain, lie had no one 
word intimating that he had laughed or wept, 
was married or in love, had been commended, or 
cheated, or chagrined. If he had ever lived and 
acted, we were none the w'iser for it. The capital 
secret of his profession, namely, to convert life 
into trnth, he had not learned. Not one fact in 
all his experience had he yet imported into his doc- 
trine. This man had plonghed and planted and 
talkeil and ln>ught and sold ; he had read books ; 
he had eaten and drunken ; his head aches, his 
heart throbs ; he smiles and snif ers ; yet was there 
n(^t a snrmise, a hint, in all the discoiu'se, that he 
had ever lived at all. Not a line did he draw ont 
of real history. The true preacher can be known 
by this, that he deals ont to the people his life, — 
life passed throngh the fire of thonglit. Bnt of the 
bad preacher, it eonld not be told from his sermon 
what age of the wi>rld he fell in ; whether he hail a 
father or a child ; whether he w'as a freeholder or 
a pai\})er ; whether he was a citizen or a conntry- 



ADlJliJCSS. 137 

man ; or any othf;r fact of his bio^apliy. It 
seemed strange that the people shouhl come to 
churcli. It seemed as if their houses were very un- 
entertaining, that they should prefer this thought- 
less clamor. It shows that there is a commanding 
attraction in the moral sentiment, that can lend a 
faint tint of light to dulness and ij^iiorance coming 
in its name and place. The good hearer is sure 
he has been touched sometimes ; is sure there is 
somewhat to be reached, and some word that can 
reach it. When he listens to these vain words, he 
comforts himself by their relation to his remem- 
brance of better hours, and so they clatter and echo 
unchallenged. 

I am not ignorant that when we preach unworth- 
ily, it is not always quite in vain. There is a good 
ear, in some men, that draws supplies ta virtue out 
of very indifferent nutriment. There is poetic 
truth concealed in all the common-places of prayer 
and of sermons, and though foolishly spoken, they 
may be wisely heard ; for each is some select ex- 
pression that broke out in a moment of piety from 
some stricken or juljilant soul, and its excellency 
made it remembered. The prayers and even the 
dogmas of our church are like the zodiac of Den- 
derah and the astronomical monuments of the Hin- 
doos, wholly insulated from anything Jiow extant in 
the life and business of the people. They mark the 



138 ADDRESS. 

heisfht to wliicli the waters once rose. But this do- 
cility is a check upon the mischief from the good 
and devout. In a large portion of the community, 
the religious service gives rise to quite other thoughts 
and emoticms. We need not chide the negligent 
servant. We are struck with pity, rather, at the 
swift retribution of his sloth. Alas for the un- 
hai)py man that is called to stand in the pulpit, and 
not give bread of life. Ever}i;hing that befalls, ac- 
cuses him. Would he ask contributions for the 
missions, foreign or domestic ? Instantly his face 
is suffused with shame, to propose to his parish that 
they should send money a hundred or a thousand 
miles, to furnish such poor fare as they have at 
home and would do well to go the hundred or the 
thousand miles to escape. Would he urge people 
to a godly way of living ; — and can he ask a 
fellow-creature to come to Sabbath meetinQ:s, when 
he and they all know what is the poor uttermost 
they can hope for therein ? Will he invite them 
privately to the Lord's Supper ? He dares not. If 
no heart warm this rite, the hollow, dry, creaking 
formality is too plain than that he can face a man 
of wit and energy and put the in\atafcion without 
terror. In the street, what has he to say to the 
bold village blasphemer ? The village blasphemer 
sees fear in the face, form, and gait of the min- 
ister. 



ADDRESS. 139 

Let me not taint the sincerity of tliis plea by any 
oversight of the claims of good men. I know and 
honor the purity and strict conscience of numbers 
of the clergy. What life the public worship re- 
tains, it owes to the scattered company of pious 
men, who minister here and there in the churches, 
and who, sometimes accepting with too great ten- 
derness the tenet of the elders, have not accepted 
from others, but from their own heart, the genuine 
impulses of virtue, and so still command our love 
and awe, to the sanctity of character. Moreover, 
the exceptions are not so much to be found in a few 
eminent preachers, as in the better hours, the truer 
inspirations of all, — nay, in the sincere moments of 
every man. But, with whatever exception, it is 
still true that tradition characterizes the preaching 
of this country ; that it comes out of the memory, 
and not out of the soul; that it aims at what is 
usual, and not at what is necessary and eternal ; 
that thus historical Christianity destroys the power 
of preaching, by withdrawing it from the explo- 
ration of the moral nature of man ; where the sub- 
lime is, where are the resources of astonishment and 
power. What a cruel injustice it is to that Law, 
the joy of the whole earth, which alone can make 
thought dear and rich ; that Law whose fatal sure- 
ness the astronomical orbits poorly emulate ; — that 
it is travestied and depreciated, that it is behooted 



110 AnniiFss. 

Miul bohowltnl. !U»«l wot a (r:\lt. not a woihI of It av- 
tioulatoil. 'V\\o piilpil in losiuo- si>;lit o( (liis Law, 
U>sos its it^isou. and >;ro|u>s attor it kn(>\vs iu>t what. 
And tt>r want ot this I'nhnit' tho sonl ot th(» i>(>iu- 
nmnitv is siok and taitlihvss. It wants in>tl»inii" so 
nnu'h as a stinn, hij^h. stoical, (.'hvistiau disoiplino, 
to i\iak(> it know its<dt' ixwd tho divinity that sju^aks 
thnmjih it. Now man is aslianiod o( hinisidl' ; ho 
sknlks and snoaUs thvi>U};li tho work!. \o W' ti>kM-at(ul, 
to ho pitioik an»l soaividv in a thousand yoars thu's 
any n\an «k\n' to hi> wiso and tituuk :nul so draw at- 
tor hin\ tho toars ami hlossiu>;"s ot" his kintl. 

Cortai>»ly thovo havt- bi>on poviods w1i(M\, trom tho 
inni'tivity o( tho intolk^'t on oortain tinths, a liivator 
faith was p(wsihk> in nanu>s and povsons. Tho Puri- 
tans ill l\Ui;land and Ainorioa foiunl in tlu^ (.Mu'ist 
of tho (.\ntholio C^huroh anil in tho d»\t;tuas iuhovitoil 
from Konu\ si'i>pi» fi>r thoir anstoro pioty and their 
k^ujiiuii-s t\u" I'ivil fnHHlonu But tiioir orood is pass- 
ing awav, and noni> arisos in its n>om. 1 think no 
man I'an gt> with his thiMii^hts alH>nt him into t>no 
oi our i'hni\'hos, withinit fooliui:' that what lu>kl \\w 
p\il>lio worship had (Mi u\cu is t;\mo, or i;\>ini;\ It 
has lost its li'ra.sj^ im tho alYootion o( tlio i;ooil anil 
th(> f(>ar o( tho had. In I hi iHMmtry. ui^ighhorhinnls, 
halt" parishos aiv {ti(fnhnj oJf\ to uso iho looal torm. 
It is alivady lu^^inninj;" to indioato t'haraotor and 
n^li<;iiMt to withdraw froni tho ivlliiious nvivtiu^-s. 



AI)hlU<:Hl^. HI 

I liav<; lioat'l a (Ntvouf, [>r:rHOf), who priz'-d llif; Sab- 
hatli, Hay in fiil,t<rrn<jHH of h<eafl, " On SinidayH, it 
VA'MAWY, wi<;k<!(J to MO to fJiiji'cJi," AikI tlic /notivo 
tliat }io1<1h tti(; h<;Ht tfjcif; 'vA now only a liojKj and 
a waiting. What waw onw a rnrtrr; (;ircunmtari';<;, 
tliat the h(;Ht an<i tfni wornt rnr-.n in tfi'; pariHh, tho 
poor ami fJi*; ri'li, tfi(t h-,arfi(;(I and the i;.aiorarit, 
youn^ an<) ohi, hhoiild ni*;<;t one day aH feJIowH In 
on<; }»OMHf5, in Hi;.Mi of an ofjual ri^lit in tlie Hoijl,haH 
come t/> be a paramount motive fr>r I'oint' thitlier. 

My fn<;ndH, in tJiene two errorH, i think, I find the 
CimHdH of a decay inj; ehureh and a waHtin;^ un[>elief. 
And wfiijt j:^re,at/;r" calamity ean f;ill iifion a nation 
than the Iohh r>f wornhip? 'J'Jjerj all thinj^H go Ui d<j- 
cay. (icniuH IcavcH the t<;mple to hnunt the Htm- 
aUi or the markr;t. Uf/jrature IxtcjyinnH frivolouH. 
Science in coM. 'IIk; eye of youtli Ih nf;t WifhUA hy 
llie }io[K; of otiier worJdn, and age, ]h without honor. 
Society livcH io triflcH, and v/licn men die we do not 
mention them. 

And rjow, my }>rothe,rH, you will ank, What in 
tlicHe, dcHponding dayH can he done hy uh? The 
rcmf^ly h alreaxiy declared In the ground of oiir 
C/Omf)laint of the Church. Wc have r^>ntraHt/;d the 
(Jhurch with the. Soul. In the, houI then h;t the rcy 
dem[)tion be >w>ught. Wherever a man eomcH, there 
comcH revolution. "^Ihe old in for Hlij-VCH. When a 
man c/niHiH, all book« are legible, all things tranB- 



1 1 2 ADDRESS. 

parent, all religions are forms. He is religious. 
Man is the wonderworker. He is seen amid mir- 
at^les. All men bless and cnrse. lie saith yea and 
nay, only. The stationariness of religion ; the as- 
sumptimi that the age of inspiration is past, that 
the Bible is closed ; the fear of degrading the eliar- 
aeter of Jesus by representing him as a man ; — in- 
dieate with sutlieient elearness the falsehood of our 
theolooy. It is the ofHee of a true teaeher to show 
us that (lod is, not was ; that He speaketh, not 
spake. The true Christianity, — a faith like Christ's 
in the infuiitude of man, — is lost. None believeth 
in the soul of man, but only in some man or person 
old and departed. Ah me ! no man goeth alone. 
All nun go in tloeks to this saint or that poet, 
avoiding the God who seeth in secret. They can- 
not see in secret ; they love to b(> blind in public. 
They think society wiser than their soul, and know 
not that one so*\l, and their soul, is wiser than the 
Avliole woild. See how nations and races flit by on 
the sea of time and leave no i'ij>[>le to tell where 
the^' floated or sunk, and ime jiood soul shall make 
the name of Moses, or of Zeno, or of Zoroaster, rev- 
erend foi-ever. None assayeth the stern ambition 
to be the Self of the nation and of nature, but each 
would be an easy secondary to some Christian 
scheme, or sectarian connection, or some eminent 
man. Oni'c leave your own knowledge of God, 



AIjDHESS. 143 

your own sentiment, and take secondary knowledge, 
as St. Paul's, or George Fox's, or Swedenborg's, and 
you get wide from God with every year this sec- 
ondary form lasts, and if, as now, for centuries, — 
the chasm yawns to tliat In-eadth, tliat men can 
scarcely be convinced tliere is in them anything 
divine. 

Let me admonish you, first of all, to go alone ; 
to r(;fiise the good models, even those which are 
safirerl in the imagination of men, and dare to love 
God without mediator or veil. Friends enough you 
shall find who v.ill hold up to your emulation Wes- 
leys and 01)erlins, Saints and Prophets. Thank 
God for these good men, })ut say, ' I also am a man.' 
Imitation cannot go above its mod(d. Tlie imitator 
dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inven- 
tor did it because it was natural to him, and so in 
him it has a chai-m. In the imitator something else 
is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own 
beauty, to come shoi-t of another man's. 

Yourself a newborn bard of the Holy Ghost, 
cast behind you all conformity, and acquaint men 
at first hand with Deity. Look to it first and only, 
that fashion, custom, authority, pleasure, and money, 
are nothing to you, — are not bandages over your eyes, 
that you cannot see, — but live with the privilege 
of tlie immeasuralde mind. Not too anxious to visit 
periodically aU fainllies and each family in your 



144 ADDRESS. 

parish connection, — when you meet one of these 
men or wouion, bo to them a divine man ; be to 
them thoui^ht and virtue ; let their timid aspirations 
find in you a friend ; k^t tlieir trampled instincts 
be genially tempted out in yi>ur atmosphere ; let 
their doi\bts know that you have doubted, and their 
wonder feel that you have wondered. By trusting 
your own heart, you shall gain more confidence in 
other men. For all our penny-wisdom, for all our 
soul-destroviuii- slavery to habit, it is not to be 
doiibted that all men have sublime thoughts ; that 
all men value the few real hours of life ; they love 
to be heard ; they love to be caught up into the 
vision of principles. We mark with light in the 
memory the few interviews we have had, in the 
dreary years of routine and of sin, with souls that 
made oiir souls wiser ; that spoke what we thought ; 
that told us what we knew ; that gave us leave to 
be what we inly were. Dischartre to men the 
priestly office, and, present or absent, you shall be 
followed with their love as by an angel. 

And, to this end, let us not aim at connnon de- 
grees of merit. Can Ave not leave, to such as love 
it, the Adi'tue that glitters for the commendation of 
society, and ourselves pierce the deep solitudes of 
absolute ability and worth? We easily come up 
to the standard of goodness in society. Society's 
praise can be cheaply secxu'ed, and almost all men 



ADDRESS. 145 

are content with those easy merits ; but the instant 
effect of conversing' with God will be to put them 
away. There are persons who are not actors, not 
speakers, but influences ; persons too great for fame, 
for display ; who disdain eloquence ; to whom all 
we call art and artist, seems too nearly allied to 
show and by-ends, to the exaggeration of the finite 
and selfish, and loss of the universal. The orators, 
the poets, the commanders encroach on us only as 
fair women do, by our allowance and homage. 
Slight them by preoccupation of mind, slight them, 
as you can well afford to do, })y high and universal 
aims, and they instantly feel that you have right, 
and that it is in lower places that they must shine. 
They also feel your right ; for they with you are 
open to the influx of the all-knowing Spirit, which 
annihilates before its broad noon the little shades 
and gradations of intelligence in the compositions 
we call wiser and wisest. 

In such high communion let us study the grand 
strokes of rectitude : a bold benevolence, an inde- 
pendence of friends, so that not the unjust wishes 
of those who love us shall impair our freedom, but 
we shall resist for truth's sake the freest flow of 
kindness, and appeal to sympathies far in ad- 
vance ; and, — what is the highest form in which 
we know this V>eautif ul element, — a certain solid- 
ity of merit, that has nothing to do with opinion, 

VOL. I. 10 



niul whioh is sv> ossiM\tiallv i\\u\ innulfostly virtno, 
t!va( it is taUon tor !^'rju\to»l tlint tho rij;lit. (ho 
bravo, tho iiXMUMH>us sto}» will bo (aUon bv it. ixnd 
nobvnlv (hiwUs ot" i>oii\mo\\ibtvi;' it. ^ on wouKl oi>\u- 
plit\\oj\( a oo\Oi>u\b iloiiiii" a i;\>o(l av't. but v»mi woulil 
luM praiso an ai\^\^l. V\\o silomv tliat aoi'«»i>t^ 
luorit as tho »»iost natural thiiiii" \n i\\o wovKl. is 
tbo hijihost applanso. Snob sonls. wbon {\\c\ aj>- 
^Hvir, ajv tbo hnp»M-ial (uianl «>t' \ ivmo. tho piM^ 
|vt\»al ivsorvo. (ho vbotadu's i>f t\>r(nni\ Ono noovls 
not praiso tlnMv oimrai^v. — (hov aiv (ho hoait anil 
sv>nl of iiatnw. (^ niv rrioitds. thoiv aiv ivsomvos 
in ns o»» whiob wo havo not ilrawn. TbiM'o aro 
n\on who riso ivtivshovl on boarinii' a throat ; n»on 
towhonx a oiisis w hii'h intiiniilatos anil paraly/.os 
tbo majoiitv. — ibMnauibn;;' not tho taonltios of pru- 
lionoo anil tlnilt. bnt i'on»invhotvsion. inunovabU*- 
noss, tho tvadinoss of saoritioo, — oonios ji'vaoofnl 
anil bolovoil as a briilo. Napoloot\ s;uil o( Mas- 
sona, that ho was not binisolf nntil tho battlo bou"5ii» 
to ii\> aii'-ainst hin\ ; tbon. wbon tbo iloail boiinm to 
fall in ranks aronnil bin». awoko bis powors of 
I'lMnbination. anil bo pnt on torror anil viotorv as 
a n>bo. So it is in rn>;;<;xHl orisos. in nnwoariablo 
ouilnranoo, anil iti aints whioh pnt synipatbv i>nt of 
tpiostiou, that tbo an^vl is shown. Hot thoso a«v 
hoijihts that wo oan soaiw ronionibor ami look np 
to withont iH>ntrition ami shanio. Lot ns thank 
lioil that snob tbinii's oxist. 



AhhUEHH. H7 

Am'I WWII \i-X iw <lo vi\i'A\, w<? can t/> r(;U]w]U; iUn 
Mmou)«i<;ri/ijf, nigh <iui',tn',]tt-A i'trc, on fii'j altar. 'I fi« 
<5vilH of t,(i<; (Jiiif'li Oaf, now /H ar<{ lunti'tfcM. 'I in-, 
<j(j/;Hf,ion »'«rtnrnx, What nfialj w<j d/>? I o/tuU',m^ 
a)j 'AiU;u\\>\M U) prtt'yu^ and ^jHtaMinli a Cultrj>< with 
ru5W rit/;H an'j forinH, wj<;ni f/> ni<; vain. Faith 
ntsiUf'M tin, an/i not w<j it, and faitli tnnkt-A \U <>iiu 
ii>rtuH. All ',iiU;Ui\f\M U) cAftiinvn a HynU',m an? ai4 
w;hl aM ih<', n';w wornhif* \uU-(A\U'A'a\ hy tfic Vv('m<;\i 
i/} ihh ^(nidf'MH of \U;'AiM>u, — t^MJay, \f^U;\)4/,i.r<\ and 
fili^n-^;, and cruVuiy^ t^>-rn/;fTow Irj iiih/lrKim and 
rnijrd<;r. Ii.ath';r h;t th«; \>r'Ml\i of n<;W lif<; h<; 
\)V(:'.i.\.\uA \iy you throii^^h th<; i<>nnH alr<;;i/Jy ♦jxinf^ 
in^. For if onr'^5 you ar<; aJiv^j, you nhall finrj th^ry 
whall \n-AA)tii't [dantic and n<;w. 'I*lj/; ictinuiy U> 
th'jir (U'Aonn'tiy \h firnt, h<;uJ, an/l m-j'/nul, n(m\^ and 
#;v<!rfn//n;, H'mjL A wh/;h; \x>])(A(fUi of forrn.H on^, 
puliation of virt,uf; f;an uplift and vivify. 7* wo in- 
(',niiuiii\>\h a^Jvantaj^^jH Christianity haw jfiv<;n ux; 
firnt th<; Sahf>ath, th'j yxMAf-Ai of the wljoh; worlds 
whtym; \'t'^\it dawuH w<:]c/)nt<', alike int^^ the cUrntd (4 
the [>hiloH'>(>her, inf/< the ^arr^dt. </f t/^il, and intf> 
\)v'iiyt)it-<'A'MH, an/1 everywhere Hu^^<^t», ev^m t>; tli/; 
vile, tlw? dig^nity of Hpiritu/tl U;ing. J>;t it Htand 
foreverrnore, a t>;rn[>le, whir;h new 1/^ve, new faith, 
m;w night nhall rt^MAn-h U> more tlian it« fir«t splen- 
dor t/; mankind. Ami ¥A-A-A)ud\y,iUh tnniitntufn of 
pr<;a/'Jiirtg, — the h])<-a-a-}i of man t/> men, — e-^nen- 



148 ADDIiESS. 

tially the most floxiblt^ of all organs, of all forms. 
What hiiulors that now, overywhero, in pnlpits, iu 
leetnre-rooms, in honsos, in liohls, \vhoroYor the 
invitation of men or yonr o^^^l oeeasious lead yon, 
you speak the very truth, as yonr life and t'on- 
seienee teach it, and cheer tJie waiting, fainting 
hearts of men with new hope and new revelation ? 
I look for the hour when that supreme Beauty 
whit'h ravished the souls of those eastern men, and 
chiefly of those Hebrews, and through their lips 
spoke oracles to all time, shall speak in the AVest 
also. The Hebrew and Greek Scriptures contain 
immortal sentences, that have been bread of life to 
millions. But they have no epical integrity ; are 
fragmentary ; are not shown in their order to the 
intellect. 1 look for the new Teacher that shall 
follow so far those shining laws that he shall see 
them come full circle ; sh:\ll see their rounding 
complete grace ; shall see the woild to be the mir- 
ror of tlie sold ; shall see the identity of the law of 
gravitation with purity of heart; and shall show 
that the Ought, that Duty, is one thing with Sci- 
ence, with Beauty, and with Joy. 



LITERARY ETHICS. 

AN ORATION DELIVERED BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES OF 
DAET310UTII COLLEGE, JULY 24, 1838. 



OJlA'ilOX. 



Tli/i invitation to iubitt^H you thix^iay, with wKi/;h 

you l<av<j Si'fhOVi'A ant, wjw Ji call )y> w<il/^;m<; tlmt 1 

rr;i/l/'- Ijii^tx? fc') oUr;y it. A mitnmfmh U> ^'^^IcJ/r'Jtte 

with ht'XnAar^i a JiU^mry fi^>»tivaj, i« «<> 'AUmw^ i/t um 

tm U> ovt'j'i'/nim t^m ih/ii\/U I inip^ht w<ilJ niiUniii'm of 

my ahiJity tr> hrin^ you any i\i/fii'^\ii vvoiihy of your 

atU^ntJon. I fjiiv<} ratUiiuA ilm muUiUi a{^<'. of iniuj ; 

y<it I lx'Ji<?v<i I atn n//t h^J^w j^Wl or hun'^uitui at tfwf 

ttuitdmij; of m^nfAata^ iimtt wh/?n, a U;y, I ftrsiit sa-^r 

tii<i '^t'H/hviUth of tity own 0>II/'/g<{ asiimuAtUA at thi?ir 

H.umsHr>-,iivy. N<?ith/;i' y<r«ii'» nz/f f>^>ok« hiiv*} y«it 

avaih'/i tr> axi'ti'imUt a \>rH\iu[\f'Ai tJj/m rtfttUiA in m«, 

that a mlutlar i« tii/^. favorit-c. of linavt^n art/j imrtli^ 

i.\i<i i',%i'A'\\nui'.y of Um i'/mutry, tlm hn]f\ni^6i of taan, 

I I'm tiuiU'H h^J him (Wna-iiy into tiw. J</>ly ^roun/i 

wiuifii <ft\nit' uu'm\ a«|;iration« only j><;int. lliHn*U'^ 

(imainH ura tHW/d^i'ionn of iUh imt'OHt yty Ut all rn/^m 

Ky<(*K i« lixj t'> tlwi hliwl ; f/i*:rt i« Ij/j t^> th/^ lanMJ. JfiiJ 

fa'dtmtH, if h<i i» worthy, am inl/ft>» t/> hij^lj/if a<1van- 

taj^';«. Arul lnumtmi t\ut mlKAar }/y cvi'j-y thought 

}j<5 fJiinkh (ixU'Juh \m dotuht'ion int/> thii g<;n/;ral 



152 LITERARY ETHICS. 

mind of men, he is not one, but many. The few- 
scholars in each country, whose genius I know, 
seem to me not individuals, but societies ; and when 
events occur of great import, I count over these rep- 
resentatives of opinion, whom they will affect, as 
if I were counting nations. And even if his results 
were incommunicable ; if they abode in his own 
spirit ; the intellect hath somewhat so sacred in its 
possessions that the fact of his existence and pur- 
suits would be a happy omen. 

Meantime I know that a very different estimate 
of the scholar's profession prevails in this country, 
and the importunity, with which society presses its 
claim upon young men, tends to pervert the views 
of the youth in respect to the culture of the intel- 
lect. Hence the historical failure, on which Europe 
and America have so freely commented. This 
country has not fulfilled what seemed the reason- 
able expectation of mankind. Men looked, when 
all feudal straps and bandages were snapped asun- 
der, that nature, too long the mother of dwarfs, 
should reimburse itself by a brood of Titans, who 
should laugh and leap in the continent, and run up 
the moimtains of the West with the errand of ge- 
nius and of love. But the mark of American merit 
in painting, in sculpture, in poetry, in fiction, in 
eloquence, seems to be a certain grace without 
grandeur, and itself not new but derivative, a vase 



LITERARY ETHICS. 153 

of fair outline, but empty, — which whoso sees 
may fill with what wit and character is in him, but 
which does not, like the charged cloud, overflow 
with terrible beauty, and emit lightnings on all 
beholders. 

I will not lose myself in the desultory questions, 
what are the limitations, and what the causes of 
the fact. It suffices me to say, in general, that the 
diffidence of mankind in the soul has crept over the 
American mind ; that men here, as elsewhere, are 
indisposed to innovation, and prefer any antiquity, 
any usage, any livery productive of ease or profit, 
to the unproductive service of thought. 

Yet in every sane hour the service of thought ap- 
pears reasonable, the despotism of the senses insane. 
The scholar may lose himself in schools, in words, 
and become a pedant ; but when he comprehends 
his duties he above all men is a realist, and con- 
verses with things. For the scholar is the student 
of tlie world ; and of what worth the world is, and 
with what emj^hasis it accosts the soul of man, such 
is the worth, such the call of the scholar. 

The want of the times and the propriety of this 
anniversary concur to draw attention to the doc- 
trine of Literary Ethics. What I have to say on 
that doctrine distributes itself under the topics of 
the resources, the subject, and the discipline of the 
scholar. 



154 LITERARY ETHICS. 

I. The resources of the scholar are proportioned 
to his confidence in the attributes of the Intellect. 
The resources of the scholar are co-extensive with 
nature and truth, yet can never be his unless claimed 
by him with an equal greatness of mind. He can- 
not know them until he has beheld with awe the in- 
finitude and impersonality of the intellectual power. 
When he has seen that it is not his, nor any man's, 
but that it is the soul which made the world, and 
that it is all accessible to him, he will know that he, 
as its minister, may rightfully hold all things sub- 
ordinate and answerable to it. A divine pilgrim 
in nature, all things attend his steps. Over him 
stream the flying constellations ; over him streams 
Time, as they, scarcely divided into months and 
years. He inhales the year as a vapor : its fragrant 
mid-summer breath, its si3arkling January heaven. 
And so pass into his mind, in bright transfigura- 
tion, the grand events of history, to take a new 
order and scale from him. He is the world ; and 
the epochs and heroes of chronology are pictorial 
images, in which his thoughts are told. There is 
no event but sprung somewhere from the soul of 
man ; and therefore there is none but the soul of 
man can interpret. Every presentiment of the 
mind is executed somewhere in a gigantic fact. 
What else is Greece, Rome, England, France, St. 
Helena ? What else are churches, literatures, and 



LITERARY ETHICS. 155 

• 

empires ? The new man must feel tliat he Is new, 
and has not come into the world mortgaged to the 
opinions and usages of Europe, and Asia, and Egypt. 
The sense of spiritual independence is like the lovely 
varnish of the dew, whereby the old, hard, peaked 
earth and its old self-same productions are made 
new every morning, and shining ^\dth the last touch 
of the artist's hand. A false humility, a complais- 
ance to reigning schools or to the wisdom of antiq- 
uity, must not defraud me of supreme possession 
of this hour. If any person have less love of liberty 
and less jealousy to guard his integrity, shall he 
therefore dictate to you and me ? Say to such doc- 
tors. We are thankf id to you, as we are to history, 
to the pyramids, and the authors ; but now our day 
is come ; we have been born out of the eternal 
silence ; and now will we live, — live for ourselves, 
— and not as the pall-bearers of a funeral, but as 
the upholders and creators of our age ; and neither 
Greece nor Rome, nor the three Unities of Aristotle, 
nor the three Kings of Cologne, nor the College of 
the Sorbonne, nor the Edinburgh Review is to com- 
mand any longer. Now that we are here we will 
put our own interpretation on things, and our own 
things for interpretation. Please himself with com- 
plaisance who will, — for me, tilings must take my 
scale, not I theirs. I will say mth the warlike 
king, " God gave me this crowTi, and the whole 
world shall not take it away." 






156 LITEEAIiY ETHICS. 

• 

The wliolo value of history, of bioorapliy, is to 
increase my self-trust, by denioustratiug" Nvhat nuiu 
can be and ilo. This is the moral of the l*lu- 
tarc'hs, the CuilNvorths, the Tt^nnoinanns, who j^ive 
us the story ot" men ov of opinions. Any history 
of philoso]>hy fortiiies my faith, by showing' me 
that what high Joginas I had su]>posed were the 
rare and late fruit of a emnulative oulture, and 
only now possible to some reeent Kant or Fiehte, 
• — were the prompt improvisations of the earliest 
inquirers; of Parmeuides, Ileraelitus, and Xen*)- 
phanes. In view of these stiidents, the send seems 
to whisper, 'There is a better way than this indo- 
lent learning- of another. Leave me alone ; do not 
teach me out of Leibnitz or Schelling, and I slaall 
find it all out myself.' 

Still moi'o do w'e owe to biography the fortiticiv 
tion of our hoj)e. If you would know the power 
of character, see how nnii'h you would impoverish 
the w orld if you could take clean out of histiu'y the 
lives of ^Milton, Shakspeare, and Plato, — these 
three, and i-ause them not to be. See you not how 
much less the power of man would be ? I I'onsole 
myself in the poverty of my thoughts, in the pau- 
city of great men, in the malignity and diduess of 
tlie nations, by falling back on these sublime recol- 
lections, and seeing what the prolific soid could 
beget on actual nature ; — seeing that Plato was, 



LITERARY ETHICS. 157 

and Sliakspeare, and Milton, — three irrefragable 
facts. Then I dare ; I also will essay to be. The 
humblest, the most hopeless, in view of these radi- 
ant facts, may now theoiize and hope. In spite of 
all the rueful abortions that squeak and gibber in 
the street, in spite of slumber and guilt, in spite of 
the army, the bai*-room, and the jail, have been 
these glorious manifestations of the mind ; and I 
will thank my great brothers so truly for the ad- 
monition of their being, as to endeavor also to be 
just and brave, to aspire and to speak. Plotinus 
too, and Spinoza, and the immortal bards of philos- 
ophy, — that which they have written out with pa- 
tient courage, makes me bold. No more will I dis- 
miss, with haste, the visions which flash and sj^ar- 
kle across my sky ; but observe them, approach 
them, domesticate them, brood on them, and draw 
out of the past, genuine life for the present hour. 
To feel the full value of these lives, as occasions 
of hope and provocation, you must come to loiow 
that each admirable genius is but a successful 
diver in that sea whose floor of pearls is all your 
own. The impoverishing philosophy of ages has 
laid stress on the distinctions of the individual, and 
not on the universal attributes of man. The youth, 
intoxicated \vith his admiration of a hero, fails to 
see that it is only a projection of his own soul 
which he admires. In solitude, in a remote vil- 



158 LITERARY ETHICS. 

laii-e, the ardent \in\ih loitei-s and nunirns. With 
inflamed eye, in this sU>e}>ing" wihUn-ness, lie lias 
i-ead the stovy of the Enipewv Charles the Fifth, 
until his faney has broiiglu hoiiu^ to the suntmnd- 
inji" woods, the faint mar of eannonades in the 
Milanese, and uiaivhes in Germany. He is euri- 
ons eoneerninir that man's dav. AVliat tilled it? 
the crowded onlers, the stern decisions, the for- 
eign despatches, the Castilian etiquette ? The sonl 
answers — Bt^holil his day heiv ! In the sighing of 
these wooils, in the qniet of these gray fields, in 
the cool breeze that sings i>nt of these northern 
monntains ; in the workmen, the boys, the maid- 
ens yon meet, — in the hopes of the morning, the 
ennni of noon, and sauntering of the afternoon •, in 
the disquieting comparisons ; in the ivgrets at want 
of vigor; in the givat idea and the pnny execn- 
tion ; — behold Charles the Fifth's day ; another, 
yet the same ; behold Chatham's, Ilanipden's, Bay- 
aixl's, Alfi-etl's, Scipio's, Pericles's day, — day of 
all that are born of women. Tlie difference of cir- 
cnmstance is mei'ely eostnme. I am tasting the 
self-same life, — its sweetness, its gi-eatness, its 
pain, which I so admire in other men. Do not 
foolishly ask of the inscrntable, obliterated past, 
what it cannot tell, — the details of that natui-e, of 
that day, called Bynm, or Biirke : — bnt ask it of 
the enveloping Now ; the more quaintly yon in- 



LTTERAllY ETHICS. 159 

spect its evanescent beauties, its wonderful details, 
its spiritual causes, its astounding whole, — so 
much the more you master the biography of this 
hero, and that, and every hero. Be lord of a day, 
through wisdom and justice, and you can put up 
your history books. 

An intimation of these broad rights is familiar 
in the sense of injury which men feel in the as- 
sumption of any miin to limit their possible pro- 
gress. We resent all criticism which denies us any- 
thing tliat lies in our line of a^lvance. Say to the 
man of letters that he cannot paint a Transfigura- 
tion, or build a steamboat, or be a grand-marshal, — 
and he will not seem to himself depreciattid. But 
deny to him any quality of literary or metaphysical 
power, and he is piqued. Concede to him geniu>>, 
which is a soi-t of Stoical plenum, annulling the 
comparative, and he is c^jntent ; but concede him 
talents never so rare, denying him genius, and he 
is aggrieved. What does this mean ? AVhy sim- 
ply that the soul has assurance, by instincts and 
presentiments, of all power in the direction of its 
i-ay, as well as of the special skills it has already 
acquired. 

In order to a knowledge of the resources of the 
scholar, we must not rest in the use of slender ac- 
complishments, — of faculties to do this and that 
other feat with words ; but we must pay our vows 



to tho highost powor, :uul i>ass, it" it ho possible, by 
assiiliunis lovo auA watching-, into tho visions of al>- 
soluto truth. Tho linnvth of tlio iutoUoot is striotly 
ni\alo«i'ous in all imliviiluals. It is hivgw ivi'opti»>M. 
Al4o luon, in jivnoiul, havo ^lunl dispositions, ami 
a ivspoot fov jnstioo ; luH'auso an ablo nian is noth- 
inji" olso than a good, fivo, vasonlar ovpinization, 
NvhtMinnto tho nniversnl spirit fivolv flows ; so tJiat 
his fui\il oi justioo is nv>t only vast, hut iulinito. 
All niou, in tho abstvaot, aro just ami i;o(h1 ; what 
hinilors thoni in tlu> pavtioular is tJio momontary 
piV(h>tniuanoo of tho iinito ami liulivitlual ovor tlio 
iivnoral truth. Tho oiuiilitit>n oi owv inoarnation 
in a privato solf soonis to 1h> a ptni>otual touilonoy 
to pvofov tho pvivato hiw, to t>hoy tho privato iin- 
pulso, ti> tho oxohision of tho law o( uuivorsal bt>- 
mg". Tho horo is »i"ivat bv uioaus of tho proilouii- 
nanoo of tho uuivorsal natuiv ; ho has only to opon 
his mouth, and it si>oaks ; ho has only to bo t'ovood 
to aot, and it aots. All mon oatoh tho word, or 
ombraoo tho dood, with tho hoart, for it is vorily 
thoirs as ninoh as his ; but in thoui this disoaso of 
an oxiH^ss of oi*pvnii!ation ohoats thoui of oqual is- 
snos. Ni»thin*f is nion> simplo Hum groatiioss ; in- 
dootl, to bo simplo is to bo pvat. Tho vision of jit^ 
uius oomos hv I'enounoini.r tho too otltioious aotivitv 
of tho undorstanding', and givinsi' louvo and aniplost 
pvivilogo to tho spontauoous sontinieut. Out of this 



LITEHAIIY ETIIKJH. ICl 

muHt all tliiit is alive and gonial in tliouj^lit j^o. 
M(!n j^rind and grind in the mill of a truiKin, and 
notiiing <;on»eH out Ijut what wan put Jji. lint the 
nionient th<jy dener-t the tra/lition for a spontaneous 
thougiit, then j>oetry, wit, hope, virtue, learning, an- 
ecdote;, all flock to their aid. Observe the pluniom- 
eiion of extempore debate;. A man of eultivate<l 
mind but reserved liabits, sitting silent, admires the 
miraeli; of free, impassioned, picturesque speef;h, 
in the man addressing an assembly; — a state of 
l>eing and power how unlike his own I J^resently 
his own emotion rises to his lips, and over-flows 
in speech. He must also rise and say f^omewhat. 
Onee embarked, om;e having overcom<; the novelty 
ol' Ui<5 situation, he lindjs it just as easy arrd 
natural te> speak, — to speak with thoughts, with 
pictures, with rhythmical balance of sentences, — 
as it was to sit silent ; for it nee<ls not to do, but 
to suffer ; he only adjusts himself \m the free 
spirit which gladly utters itself through hirn ; and 
motion is as easy as rest. 

11. 1 pass now to consider the task offered to 
th<; int<dlect of this country. The view I have 
taken of the rtisources of the scholar, presupposes a 
subject as broaxl. We do not seem \jn have imag- 
ined its riches. We have not heeded the invitation 
it holds out. To be as good a scholar as English- 

VOL, I. u 



162 LITERARY ETHICS. 

men are, to have as much learnmg as our contem- 
poraries, to have written a book that is read, sat- 
isfies us. We assume that all thought is already 
long ago adequately set down in books, — all imag- 
inations in poems ; and what we say we only throw 
in as confirmatory of this supposed complete body 
of literature. A very shallow assumption. Say 
rather all literature is yet to be written. Poetry 
has scarce chanted its first song. The jjerpetual 
admonition of nature to us, is, ' The world is new, 
untried. Do not believe the past. I give you the 
universe a virgin to-day.' 

By Latin and English poetry we were born and 
bred in an oratorio of praises of nature, — flowers, 
birds, mountains, sun, and moon; — yet the natur- 
alist of this hour find that he knows nothing, by all 
their poems, of any of these fine things ; that he has 
conversed with the mere surface and show of them 
all ; and of their essence, or of their history, know- 
ing nothing. Further inquiry will discover that 
nobody, — that not these chanting poets themselves, 
knew any thing sincere of these handsome natures 
they so commended ; that they contented themselves 
with the passing chirp of a bird, that they saw one 
or two mornings, and listlessly looked at sunsets, 
and repeated idly these few glimpses in their song. 
But go into the forest, you shall find all new and 
undescribed. The honking of the wild geese fly- 



LITERARY ETHICS. 163 

ing by night ; tlie thin note of the companionable 
titmouse in the winter day ; the fall of swarms of 
flies, in autumn, from combats high in the air, pat- 
tering clown on the leaves like rain ; the angry hiss 
of the wood-birds ; the pine throwing out its pollen 
for the benefit of the next century ; the turpentine 
exuding from the tree ; — and indeed any vegeta- 
tion, any animation, any and all, are alike unat- 
tempted. The man who stands on the seashore, or 
who rambles in the woods, seems to be the first man 
that ever stood on the shore, or entered a grove, his 
sensations and his world are so novel and strange. 
Whilst I read the poets, I think that nothing new 
can be said about morning and evening. But when 
I see the daybreak I am not reminded of these 
Homeric, or Shakspearian, or Miltonic, or Chauce- 
rian pictures. No, but I feel perhaps the pain of 
an alien world ; a world not yet subdued by the 
thought ; or I am cheered by the moist, warm, glit- 
tering, budding, melodious hour, that takes down 
the narrow walls of my soul, and extends its life 
and pulsation to the very horizon. That is morn- 
ing, to cease for a bright hour to be a prisoner of 
this sickly body, and to become as large as nature. 
The noonday darkness of the American forest, 
the deep, echoing, aboriginal woods, where the liv- 
ing columns of the oak and fir tower up from the 
ruins of the trees of the last millennium; where, 



164 UrERARY KTUICS. 

from >oHv to vour, the eaiilo anil tho m'ow soo no 
iiitnulov ; the piuos, boanltnl with suvagt) moss, yet 
touelied with nmee by the violets at tht>ii" feet ; tlie 
bnnul, void li>wlauil wlnoh tonus its eoat of vapor 
witJi the stilhiess of subterranean erystallizatiou ; 
and when> the tvaveUer, amid the repulsive plants 
that an> native in the swamp, thinks with pleasiui;" 
tentu- of the distant town; this beauty, — haguard 
and desert beauty, which the sim and the uu>i>n, the 
snow and the rain, vopaiut and vary, has never 
betni iveonUd by art, yet is not indiffeivnt to any 
passenger. All nuvu are poets at heart. llu^y 
serve luitniv for bivad, but her loveliness ovewH)Jues 
them sometimes, AVhat nu>an these ji>urneYs to 
Niaiitvra; these pilgrims to the White Hills? ^lou 
believe in the adaptations of utility, always: in the 
mountains, they may believe in the ailaptations of 
the eve. Undimbtetllv the ehaniivs oi ctH)loirv have 
a ivlation to the pivspeivus spixnitiug of the eorn 
and peas iu uiy kiti'lu>u g-<u\leu ; but not less is 
theiv a ivlation of beauty betwtn'n my soul and the 
dim crag's of Agioeoehook up then> iu the i'h>utls. 
Every man, when this is told, hearkens with joy, 
and yet his own eimversation with natuiv is still un- 
sung. 

Is it otherwise with eivll history ? Is it not the 
lesson of our experience that every man, wew life 
long enough, would write history for himself^ 



LIT ERA UY ETHICS. 165 

Wliat else do these volumes of extracts and mauu- 
scri]>t (;<^i«Mientaries, tliat every scliolar writfis, in- 
dicate ? Greek liistory is one tliinj^' U) me ; another 
U) you. Bince the birth of Niebuhr and Vs^iAi, ]^>- 
man and Gre<ik liistory have been written anew. 
Since Carlyle wrote French I Iist<ny, we see tliat no 
history tliat we liave is safe, but a new classifier 
sliall give it new anxl more philos^jphical arrange- 
ment. Thucydides, Livy, liave only provided ma- 
ttirialo. The moment a man of g<inius pronounces 
the name of the P<dasgi, of Atlu;ns, of the Etrurian, 
of the Roman people, we see their stat<i under a 
imvf aspect. As in poetry anxl hist^jry, so in the 
other depai*tm<ints. There are few masters or none. 
Religion is yet to be settled on its fast foundations 
in the Ijreast of man ; and politics, and philosophy, 
and letters, and art. As yet we have nothing but 
t<ind<incy and indication. 

This starting, this waiping of the best literary 
works from tlie adamant of nature, is especially ol>- 
servaljle in j^hilosojihy. Let it take wliat t<jne of 
pret<insion it will, to this c/>mplexion must it come, 
at last. Take for example the French Eclwjticism, 
wlii(rJi Cousin esteems so conclusive ; there is an oj>- 
ti<;al illusion in it. It avows great pretensions. It 
looks as if they ha<l all trutli, in taking all the sys- 
tems, and ha<l nothing U) do but to sift and wash 
and strain, and the gold and diamonds would re- 



1G6 LITERARY ETHICS. 

main in the last eolaudor. But, Truth is such a fly- 
away, sut'li a slyboots, so untraus})ortable {uiil un- 
barrelable a i'ouuuodity, that it is as bail to catch as 
li«;ht. Shut the shutters never so quick to keej) 
all the light in, it is all in vain ; it is gone before 
you can cry, llolil. And so it ha})pcns with oui- 
jihilosophy. Translate, collate, distil all the sys- 
tems, it steads you nothing- ; for truth will not be 
conq)clled in any mechanical manner. Ihit the first 
observation you make, in the sincere act of your 
nature, though on the veriest triile, may oi)en a new 
view of nature and of man, that, like a menstruum, 
shall dissolve all theories in it ; shall take up Greece, 
Rome, Stoicism, Eclecticism, and what not, as mere 
data and food for analysis, and dispose of your 
world-containing- system as a very little luiit. A 
profoiuul thought, anywhere, classifies all things : 
a profound thought will lift Olympus. The book 
of philosophy is only a fact, and no more inspiring 
fai't than aiu)ther, and no less ; but a wise man will 
never esteem it anything final and transcending. 
Go and talk with a man of genius, and tlie first 
word he litters, sets all your so-called knowledge 
afloat and at large. Then l^lato. Bacon, Kant, and 
the Eclectic Cousin condescend instantly to be men 
and mere facts. 

1 by no means aim in these i-emarks to disparage 
the merit of these or of any existing compositions ; 



LITERARY ETITICS. 167 

I only say that any particular portraiture does not 
in any manner exclude or forestall a new attempt, 
but, when considered hy the soul, warps and 
shrinks away. The inundation of the spirit sweeps 
away before it all our little architecture of wit and 
memory, as straws and straw-huts before the tor- 
rent. Works of the int(;llect are great only by 
comparison with each other ; Ivanhoe and Waver- 
ley compared with Castle Kadcliffe and the Por- 
ter novels ; but nothing is great, — not mighty 
Homer and Milton, — beside the infinite Reason. 
It carries them away as a flood. They are as a 
sleep. 

Thus is justice done to each generation and in- 
dividual, — wisdom teaching man that he shall not 
hate, or fear, or mimic his ancestors; that he shall 
not bewail himself, as if the world was old, and 
thought was spent, and he was bom into the dotage 
of things ; for, by virtue of the Deity, thought re- 
news itself inexhaustibly every day, and the thing 
whereon it shines, though it were dust and sand, Ls 
a new suljject with countless relations. 

III. Having thus spoken of the resources and 
the subject of the scholar, out of the same faith 
proceeds also the rule of his ambition and life. 
Let him know that the world is his, but he must 
possess it by putting himself into harmony with the 



Uo u\«?tt o\«lvrA\^» vV\vUtuvlo «H j» bruU\ llo must 
Uc»vo Uvs «,Uhv^ auvl Uvs ^jUh^ws alono, UU v>\vn tvntw 
uxHtv^ lunst Ih^ «u\'I-muv ou\mgh, his \nN n jmjuso it^ 
wjvwl o«vm^i;~<\ t\vi> him, Auvl >vhv twust tho st\uhM»t 
Iv xwUtnvv HMvl jiUout"^ ThiU ho nvav Ihhwuu^ ju*- 
\\uaiuttsl with his thvm^ihts. If ho jvi»u\s iu a U^uolv 
jvh»vx\ lK>«Koi>i\»^i;' i\vr tho ounwh fv>r ^lis{vl;»Y. ho is 
wot u\ tho KvuoK jvhiw J his hoart is i« tht^ uuukot j 
ho ^Uh^ »u^t stv ; ho ^hH^s »\ot h<w i ho vUhvs uv^t 
thiuk, Uut jix^ ohovish vouv S\n»l ; oxjvl w»ujvn»- 
urns ; >vt vvHU' h,'>Uits tv» u litV of solit\uU'> ; thou will 
tho f»o\>Uii\s nso fair ju»d full within, liko fxMtvst 
t\>H\s juui tioUi tUnNoi"^: v\n> NviU hj^vo »\\s\iUs, 
>\hiv'h» whou vvM\ u\tvt v\n>v tVlh^xv^uoUx \ou oh« 
ivu\um«iv\Htx\ H»ul thoY will jihuUv wnvivo. l\> Uv»t 
ji\x iutv* solituvh^ \M>lv that vvn» luav i^wsoutlv vhvu^o 
iutv» jMxUlio. Suoh swlitmU" ihmi*^ it^vlf ; us jmhlio 
m\<l sttU«\ Tho )n»Ur>o x\>« ^«;vt jn\Ulio o\|Hn>iouiH\ 
bat thov wish tho svrh\vU»v tv» iv^Ujuv t\» tho»u th^vso 
^vvivHtOx siwvvxw vliviuo o\|HMno»uH^ wf whiv'h thov 
hj>vo Uvu <h^t\\uuh\l hv ^IwoUii^ii^ i« tho st»\vt, U 
is tho UvAxU\ »uH«liko, just thvm^^ht, whioh is tho 
swjvriovitY i\ou\uuiUHl of w^u, uuvi not o^vwvls hut 
5»oUtudo \vutVt>4 this olovHtivM\. N\»t itxsubtiou v»f 
^vlu^\ but iuvU^^vuvhM\vv of sjvivit is tvs^vutiah nu\i 
it is vvul>» j^ tho jiUi\\ou. tho vx^tti^w tho t\u\^t» auvl 



i.ni.itAhv i'iiiit;!i, \i'/.i 

i\n', nti'k., H.n', H, ni/tti. of uwA'h'AHU'/A aUh i/f iUU, iimX 
iUiry ara of valiut, 'I h'lhU ai/rtw,,, atui hIS \t\'^'Ai^ ar** 
fru'tuWy n.ttA iV4/m'A. 'lUt', i^^hM w}<// Unv*t IhfA m 
i'Ku^ imvH Stt'A'h St^mit'iiM ni\\\, ltt)^irtt"4iUm maSa^ 
MtUUuU', anywy^rti, l^nt/Ut^ liftfAnit'A^ Su%t',Uf,, 
\>ryt\hu, iM Ht«i?i, dwi'M Ut (',r«f¥^tU it t$iiiy St*',,, \mi 
iStt', nmtjiiti fJ<//«ijfl<t cAmn'M ihi c^r^/wd ^rowa diKt U* 
iUt'Jr ttyc^'f i\tt'4t' icyn i'tz*^ ou ih', it^ffrz/m^ ou vi^ 
i'mti *nr4ii'M ; iUtr/ for^/-^ U</< StyMm^ttU'^r^ ; tinty ^ntrti 
Ift'^riii^ flint mlat)//«i* ; iiu-y tU-fAi whU 'oSn^UiwiAnuii^ 
*m\\.U v*',rhU^f with J/1/5<)W. 'iltf^y itrti at/ffU', 'w'tiU tittt 
tnUtd. 

Of f'^mrm I wouJ/J i»//t Un'/ii Hfty mji*tfnthton 
H.\t*ttii wtViiwU',. I>ri iUh youlrit ^*Ay iit*f a^^ *A 
wt\\Uu\h 'AA%A of ^ti^uAy. \M, Urn trnt U/tli, rM 
mjrvh t^hU'^r, TUc rt^A'niOii why htt <n^<r«<//«w ^'/ol 
*Uuu'4 nt>*''tt'iy, in i/t i\m t^tui of iUuim% i^M'Miiy. 
ft rtiifiuitnUTH iUt', fnUttt, <mi (4 Utvf, 44 tiut irmt* 
Yon t'mt ntry t^tftm Uitirti nit yttaX n/fMiiy t^sm Um^'h 
you ftff oui', wtt'tti',. liM V^ftrntt roHiitih, art ituUiH' 
ttiUi fuuti'i\*t'n'/Ai\nfi of \tn\ta., o/nwA',!^, r'uUt^, tti^^^it*^^ 
(VAU UffU'ti you no utt/rt', ittnu a few <mi, TWi a^v 
«'>i?j/t tl^j ttUit of nltmfU',, (4 m/iriUiSil i^n\^'iutrA^ ntA 
W4M)U', t^Wu'h irmt imUirh giv^?* you^ aiui rt^irh ntui 
\tu\h 'f hff'k ttt^i (tt,t,r \ >}tui it^i, nttttiUin, \ ttum wt^S^ 
('AtUiH fntlA itui Uft\fri>/fmu'/[, raUt, <Urnr It/irmiin^/i 
i4 uHiurc. li^'^'/Att'/i, itu', h\fmiM, Wavti mlitury 



170 LITERARY ETHICS. 

experience ; and blend it with the new and divine 
life. 

You will pardon ine, Gentlemen, if I say I think 
that we have need of a more rigorous scholastic 
rule ; such an asceticism, I mean, as only the har- 
dihood and devotion of the scholar himself can en- 
force. We live in the sun and on the surface, — 
a thin, plausible, superficial existence, and talk of 
muse and prophet, of art and creation. But out of 
our shallow and frivolous way of life, how can 
greatness ever grow ? Come now, let us go and be 
dumb. Let us sit with ovir hands on our mouths, 
a long, austere, Pythagorean lustrum. Let us live 
in corners, and do chores, and suffer, and weep, 
and di'udge, with eyes and hearts that love the 
Lord. Silence, seclusion, austerity, may pierce 
deep into the grandeur and secret of our being, 
and so diving, bring up out of secular darkness 
the sublimities of the moral constitution. Plow 
mean to go blazing, a gaudy butterfly, in fashion- 
able or political saloons, the fool of society, the 
fool of notoriety, a topic for newspapers, a j^iece of 
the street, and forfeiting the real jjrerogative of 
the russet coat, the privacy, and the true and warm 
heart of the citizen ! 

Fatal to the man of letters, fatal to man, is the 
lust of display, the seeming that unmakes our 
being. A mistake of the main end to which they 



LITERARY ETHICS. 171 

labor is Incident to literary men, who, dealing with 
the organ of language, — the subtlest, strongest, 
and longest-lived of man's creations, and only fitly 
used as the weapon of thought and of justice, — 
learn to enjoy the pride of playing with this splen- 
did engine, but rob it of its abnightiness by failing 
to work with it. Extricating themselves from the 
tasks of the world, the world revenges itself by 
exposing, at every turn, the folly of these incom- 
plete, pedantic, useless, ghostly creatures. The 
scholar will feel that the richest romance, the 
noblest fiction that was ever woven, the heart and 
soul of beauty, lies enclosed in human life. It- 
self of surpassing value, it is also the richest ma- 
terial for his creations. How shall he know its se- 
crets of tenderness, of terror, of will, and of fate? 
How can he catch and keep the strain of upper 
music that peals from it? Its laws are concealed 
under the details of daily action. All action is an 
experiment upon them. He must bear his share 
of the common load. He must work with men in 
houses, and not with their names in books. His 
needs, appetites, talents, affections, accomplish- 
ments, are keys that open to him the beautiful 
museum of human life. Why should he read it as 
an Arabian tale, and not know, in his own beating 
bosom, its sweet and smart? Out of love and 
hatred, out of earnings, and borrowings, and lend- 



172 LITERARY ETHICS. 

iiigs, and losses ; out of sickness and pain ; out of 
wooing- and woi-sliii)ping ; out of travelling', and 
voting, and watching, and caring ; out of disgrace 
and contem^^t, comes our tuition in the serene and 
beautiful laws. Let him not slur his lesson ; let 
him learn it by heart. Let him endeavor exactly, 
bravely, and cheerfully, to solve the problem of 
that life which is set before liim. And this by 
punctual action, and not by promises or dreams. 
Believing, as in God, in the presence and favor 
of the grandest influences, let him deserve that 
favor, and learn how to receive and use it, by fidel- 
ity also to the lower observances. 

This lesson is taught with emphasis in the life of 
the great actor of this age, and affoi-ds the expla- 
nation of his success. Bonaparte represents ti-uly 
a great recent revolution, which we in this country, 
please God, shall carry to its farthest consumma- 
tion. Not the least instructive passage in modern 
history seems to me a trait of Napoleon exhibited 
to the English when he became their prisoner. 
On coming on board the Bellerophon, a file of 
English soldiers drawn up on deck gave him 
a military salute. Napoleon observed that their 
maimer of handling their arms differed from the 
French exercise, and, putting aside the guns of 
those nearest him, walked up to a soldier, took his 
gim, and himself went tln*ough the motion in 



LITERARY ETHICS. 173 

the French mode. The English officers and men 
looked on with astonishment, and inquired if such 
familiarity was usual with the Emperor. 

In this instance, as always, that man, with what- 
ever defects or vices, represented performance in 
lieu of pretension. Feudalism and Orientalism 
had long enough thought it majestic to do nothing ; 
the modem majesty consists in work. He be- 
longed to a class fast growing in the world, who 
think that what a man can do is his gi-eatest orna- 
ment, and that he always consults his dignity by 
doing it. He was not a believer in luck ; he had 
a faith, like sight, in the application of means to 
ends. Means to ends, is the motto of all his be- 
havior. He believed that the great captains of 
antiquity performed their exploits only by correct 
combinations, and by justly comparing the relation 
between means and consequences, efforts and ob- 
stacles. The vulgar call good fortune that which 
really is produced by the calculations of genius. 
But Napoleon, thus faithful to facts, had also this 
crowning merit, that whilst he believed in number 
and weight, and omitted no part of prudence, he 
believed also in the freedom and quite incalculable 
force of the soul. A man of infinite caution, he 
neglected never the least particular of preparation, 
of patient adaptation ; yet nevertheless he had a 
sublime confidence, as in his all, in the sallies of 



174 /.//Y.VM/.'V FT/ncs. 

tho conrngv, niul llu> fajth in liis di^sfiny, whii'li, :it 
tlio ri^ht motncnl, rt>i>;\iri>il all losses, ami tloinol- 
ishinl I'avalry, iufantrv, kiui;", and kaisar, as with 
iiTcsisiiblo Ihundorholts. As tlu^v say ilu> bou^h 
of tlio \\vc has the ohai'ai'ttM- of tlio loaf, and the 
whole troo of tho bongh, so, it is cui'ious to riMnai'k, 
lv)iia|)aTto's army })ai'took of tliis double stren<>t,h 
of tho oai)tain : for, whilst striotly siij^jdiiul in all 
its appointmonts, and ovorythini*- oxi)ootcd from 
tho valor and ilisoij>!int> «>f ovory j>latoon, in Hank 
and ooiitro, yot always romainod his total trust in 
tho prodii;i(>us rovolutit)us of fortune whieh his 
resorvoil lni|)0)"ial (Juard wtMV eaj^ablo of working', 
if, in all else, the day was lost. Here ho was sub- 
lime, lie no l()uj;in" I'ah'ulated tho ehani'o t)f tho 
eannon ball, lie was faithful to taeties to the 
uttermost, — ami when all taeties had eome to an 
iMul then he dilated ami availed hinisi>lf of the 
mighty saltations of the most formidable sohliers 
in nature. 

Let the seliolar appreeiate tliis I'ombinatiou of 
gifts, whieh, a]>i)liod to better purpose, make true 
wisdom. 11(^ is a ri>vealer of tluns^'s, Let him first 
learn the things. Lot him not, too ea!>or to grasp 
some badge of rew^ard, omit tho work to bo done. 
Let liim know that though the suoeess of the 
market is in tho reward, true success is the doing ; 
that, in tho private obodlouee to his mind ; in tlio 



IJTFJtAHY F/rilKJS. 175 

H(;fliilf)ns IfKjiiiry, day after day, year after year, to 
kru>\v liovv the thiii;^ Htands ; in the use of all 
means, and most in the revcrenee of the hunihlo 
coniTner-e(; and humble needs of life, — to hearken 
what they say, and so, }>y mutual reaction of thou;^ht 
and life, to make thought solid, and lifr; wise; ami 
in a eont<;mj>t for the ^ahhle of to-<lay'H opinions 
the secret of tlnj world is to he hjamed, and the 
skill tndy to unfold it is acfjuired. Or, rather, is 
it not, that, hy this discipline, the usuq)ation of the 
senses is overcome, and th(; lower faculties of man 
are suhdued to docility ; throu;(h which as an un- 
obstructed channel the soul now easily and gladly 
flows ? 

'^riie good sfdifilar will not refuse to Vjear the yoke 
in his youth ; to know, if he can, the utte.nnost se- 
cret of toil and endurance ; to make his own hands 
a/:fjuainted with the soil hy which he is fed, and 
flu; sweat that goes before comfort and luxury. 
Let him pay his tithe and serve the world as a true 
and noble man ; never forgetting to worship the im- 
mortal divinities who whisper to the poet and make 
him the utterer of melodies that pierce the ear of 
eternal time. If he have this twofold goodness, — 
the drill and the inspiration, — then he has health ; 
th(;n he is a whole, and not a fragment ; and the 
perfection of his endov/ment will appear in his com- 
positions. Indeed, this twofold merit character- 



170 LITERARY ETIUCS. 

izes over the pvodiK'tioiK^i of groat nuistora. Tlio 
mun of genius slunilil t>oi'in)y tho whole spaee Ih>- 
tweea (lotl or pure inind anil tlie nmltitiule (»t" ihn 
eiluoateil men. lie must iliaw fioiu the iiiihute 
Keason, on i>Ui> side : anil lu> must peuetrato into 
tlie heart ami sensi> ot" the erowil, on the other. 
From one, he must tlraw his strength ; to th(» t>ther, 
he nmst owe his aim. Tiu> oiu> yokes hiju to the 
real ; the t>ther, to the apparent. At one \hAc is 
Keason; at the other, Common Sense. It" \\c ho 
ilofeotive at either extreme of the seale, his philos- 
ojihy will seeui low auil utilitarian, or it will ap}>ear 
too vague auil iudefinite tor the uses of life. 

The student, as wo all almig insist, is great o\\\\ 
by being passive to the s\iperini'uuibent sjnrit. Let 
this faitli then dietate all liis aetion. Sn.ares auil 
bribes abound to mislead hiui ; let him 1h> trui^ 
nevertheless. His sueeess has its }H>rils too. Then^ 
is somewhat ineonvenient auil injurious in his posi- 
tion. They whom his thoughts have entertained ov 
iutiamed, seek him befoi'e yet they have learnt>d 
the hard I'onditiojis of tlunight. They stH>k him, 
that he may turn his lamp on the dark ridilh>s 
whose sobition they think is inseribed on the walls 
of their being. They tiud that he is a poor, igiu>- 
rant man, iu a white-seamed, rusty coat, like them- 
selves, nowise emitting a eimtiniuins strean\ of 
light, but now and then a jet of luminous thought 



IJTKRARY ETHICS. Ill 

followed by total darkness ; moreover, that he can- 
not make of his infrequent illumination a portable 
taper to carry whitlu^r he would, and explain now 
tliis dark riddle, now that. Sorrow ensues. The 
scholar regrets to damp the hope of ingenuous 
boys ; and the youth has lost a star out of hLs new 
flaming firmament. Hence the temptation to the 
scholar U) mystify, to hear the question, to sit ujxrn 
it, to make an answer of words in hick of the oracle 
of things. Not the less let him be cold and true, 
and wait in patience, knowing that truth can make 
even silence eloquent and memorable. Truth sliall 
be policy enough for liim. Let him open his 
breast to all honest inquiry, and be an artist supe- 
rior to tricks of art. Show frankly as a saint would 
do, your experience, methods, t(x>ls, and means. 
Welcome all comers to the fi-eest use of the same. 
And out of this superior frankness and charity 
you sliall learn higher secrets of your nature, 
wliich gods will bend and aid you to communicate. 
If, with a high trust, he can thus submit himself, 
he will find that ample returns are poured into his 
bosom out of what seemed hours of obstruction 
and loss. Let him not grieve too much on axjcount 
of unfit associates. When he sees how much 
thought he owes to the disagreeable antagonism 
of various persons who pass and cross him, he can 
easily think that in a society of perfect sympathy, 

VOL, L 12 



178 LITERARY ETHICS. 

no wovil, no aot, no i-eeoril, would bo. Ilo will 
loaru that it is not much matter what ho ivails, 
what ho iloos. l>o a scholar, ami ho sliall havo tlio 
scholar's part of evorvthing. As in tho oomiting- 
i\>om tho moix^haiit caivs little whether the eai'sx> 
bo ludes or barilla ; tho transaction, a letter of 
credit or a transfer of stocks ; bo it what it mav, 
his commission inmies gt>ntly tnit of it ; so you sluiU 
g"ot your lesson i>ut of the hour, and tho objoot, 
whether it be a coneentrattHl v>i- a wasteful employ- 
ment, even in reading a lUill book, or working off 
a stint of mechanical dav-labor which your neeessi- 
ties or the necessities of othoi-s impose. 

Gentlemen, I havo ventured to offer you those 
considerations upon tho scholar's place and hope, 
because I thought that standing, as many of you 
now do, on the thresliold of this Collegv, girt and 
ready to g\) and assume tasks, public ami private, 
in yo\ir couiitry, you would not be sorry to be ad- 
monished of those primary duties of tho intellwt 
wheivof you will sehlom hear fi\>m the lips of your 
new companions. You will hear e\'ery day tho 
maxims of a low prudence. You will hear that 
tho first duty is to get land and money, place and 
name. 'What is this Tnith vou seek? what is 
this Btniutv?' men will ask, with derision. If 
nevertheless GvhI have called any of you to exploi'O 



LITERARY ETHICS. 179 

truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. When 
you shall say, ' As others do, so will I : I renounce, 
I am sorry for it, my early visions ; I must eat the 
good of the land and let learning and romantic ex- 
pectations go, until a more convenient season ; ' — 
then dies the man in you ; then once more perish 
the buds of art, and poetry, and science, as they 
have died already in a thousand thousand men. 
The hour of that choice is the crisis of your his- 
tory, and see tliat you hold yourself fast by the in- 
tellect. It is this domineering temper of the sen- 
sual world tliat creates the extreme need of the 
l)riests of science ; and it is the office and right of 
the intellect to make and not take its estimate. 
Bend to the persuasion which is flowing to you 
from every object in nature, to be its tongue to 
the heart of man, and to show the besotted world 
how passing fair is wisdom. Forewarned tliat the 
vice of the times and the country is an excessive 
pretension, let us seek the shade, and find wisdom 
in neglect. Be content with a little light, so it be 
your own. Explore, and explore. Be neither 
chided nor flattered out of your position of per- 
petual inquiry. Neither dogmatize, nor accept an- 
other's dogmatism. Why should you renounce 
your light to traverse the star-lit desei-ts of truth, 
for the premature comfoi-ts of an acre, house, and 
barn? Truth also has its roof, and bed, and board. 



180 LITERARY ETHICS. 

Make yourself necessary to tlie world, and nuuikiml 
will give you bread, and il" not store of it, vet sm-h 
as sliidl not take awa} youv property in all men's 
possessions, in all men's atieetions, in ai(, in na- 
ture, and in lu»pe. 

You will not fear tliat I am enjoin ins;- tt)o stern 
an asceticism. Ask not. Of what \ise is a scliolar- 
sliip that systematically reti\>ats ? or, AV ho is the 
better for the philost)pher who conceals his accom- 
plishments, aiul hides his thoun'hts from the wait- 
iuii' world? Hides his th»>ni2htsl Hide the sun 
and moon. Thought is all light, and j>ublislies it- 
self to the universe. It will speak, thoiigli vou 
were duud), by its own miraculous organ. It M'ill 
flt)w out of your actions, your manners, and your 
face. It will bring you friendships. It will im- 
})hHlge you to truth by the love and expectation of 
generous minds. By virtue of the laws of that Na- 
ture which is one and i>erfect, it shall yield every 
sinoei'e good that is in tiio soul to the scholar be- 
loved of earth and heaven. 



A» OUATIOW ItyAJVKHKh HK^OliK TIIK Y/fi'-lK'tY <)tf THE KWAA'ill, 



THE METHOD OF NATURE. 



Gentlemen, 

Let us exchange congratulations on the enjoy- 
ments and the promises of this literary anniver- 
sary. The land we live in has no interest so dear, 
if it knew its want, as the fit consecration of days 
of reason and thought. Where there is no vision, 
the people perish. The scholars are the priests of 
that thought which establishes the foundations of 
the earth. No matter what is their special work 
or profession, they stand for the spiritual interest 
of the world, and it is a common calamity if they 
neglect their post in a coimtry where the material 
interest is so predominant as it is in America. We 
hear something too much of the residts of machin- 
ery, commerce, and the useful arts. We are a 
puny and a fickle folk. Avarice, hesitation, and 
following, are our diseases. The rapid wealth 
which hundreds in the community acquire in trade, 
or by the incessant expansions of our population 
and arts, enchants the eyes of all the rest ; the luck 
of one is the hope of thousands, and the bribe acts 



184 THE METHOD OF NATURE. 

like the neighborhood of a gold mine to impoverish 
the farm, the sehool, the ehnrch, the house, ami the 
very body and feature of man. 

I do not wish to look with sour aspect at the in- 
dustrious manufacturing village, or the mart of 
eonniieree. 1 love the music of the watei"-wheel ; 
1 value the railway ; I feel the pride which the 
sight of a ship inspires ; I look on trade and every 
mechanical craft as education also. Rut let me dis- 
criminate what is precious herein. There is in each 
of these works an act of invention, an intellectual 
step, or short series of steps, taken : that act or step 
is the spiritual act ; all the rest is mere repetition 
of the same a thousand times. And I will not be 
deceived into admiring the routine of handicrafts 
and mechanics, how splendid soever the result, any 
more than I admire the routine of the scholars or 
clerical class. That splendid results ensue from the 
labors of stupid men, is the fruit of higher laws than 
their will, and the routine is not to be praised for 
it. I would not have the laborer sacrificed to the 
result, — 1 would not have the laborer sacrificed to 
my convenience and pride, nor to that of a great 
class of such as me. Let there be worse cotton and 
better men. The weaver should not be bereaved of 
his superiority to his work, and his knowledge that 
the product or the skill is of no value, except so far 
as it embodies his spiritual prerogatives. If I see 



TBE METHOD OF NATURE. 185 

nothing to admire in the unit, shall I admire a mil- 
lion units ? Men stand in awe of the city, but do 
not lionor any individual citizen ; and are contin- 
ually yielding to this dazzling result of numbers, 
that which they would never yield to the solitary 
example of any one. 

Whilst the multitude of men degrade each other, 
and give currency to desi>onding doctrines, the 
scholar must be a bringer of hope, and must rein- 
force man against himself. I sometimes believe 
that our literary anniversaries will presently assume 
a greater importance, as the eyes of men open to 
their capabilities. Here, a new set of distinctions, 
a new order of ideas, prevail. Here, we set a bound 
to the respectability of wealth, and a bound to the 
pretensions of the law and the church. The biirot 
must cease to be a bigot to-day. Into our charmed 
circle, power cannot enter ; and the sturdiest de- 
fender of existing institutions feels the terrific in- 
flammability of this air which condenses heat in 
every corner that may restore to the elements the 
fabrics of ages. Nothing solid is secure ; every 
thing tilts and rocks. Even the scholar is not safe ; 
he too is searched and revised. Is his learning 
dead ? Is he living in his memory ? The power 
of mind is not mortification, but life. But come 
foilh, thou curious child ! hither, thou loving, all- 
hoping poet : hither, thou tender, doubting heart, 



1S6 THE METHOD OF NATCRE, 

Avhicl\ hast i\ot vot fomul aiiv plaoo in tlte wovliVs 
markot tit for tht>€> ; anv waivs whioh thmi inniliist 
bwY ov sell, — so lai-ire is thv Im o ami aiulntii>M, — ■ 
thino ami not t.heii's is the houv. Snux^th thv bnnv, 
luul ho}x> ami lovo oil, for tho kind lloavou justities 
thee, ami the whole world fet>ls that thou art in the 
right. 

AVe ought to ivlehnite this hour by expivssious 
of miuilv joy. Not thanks, not prayer setnu quite 
the highest or truest name for i>ur eonununieation 
with the intinite, — but ghul ami eouspiring i'e>oej>- 
tion, — nveption that Invoiues giving in its turn, 
as the i^X'eiver is only the All-(iiver in part ami in 
iufaney. I cannot, — nor can any man, — speak pit>- 
eiselv of thing's so sublime, but it setnns to me the 
wit of man, his sti-ength, his graee, his temleney, 
his art, is the gi'at.v tiud the jxiesenee of (uhI. It is 
beyond explanation, ^^'hen all is Si\id and di>ne, 
the I'jipt Sixint is found the only logieian. Not 
exhortation, nt>t alignment Invomes our lips, but 
pivans of joy i^nd praise. But not of adulatii>n : 
we aiv ixK* nearly ivlated in the dt^>p of the mind 
to that we honor. It is God inns which eheeks the 
language? of petition by a gninder thought. In the 
lx>ttom of the heart it is sivid ; • 1 am, and by me, 
O child ! this fair boily and world of thine stands 
and givw-s. I aui ; all things ai-e mine : and all 
mine ai-e thine.' 



^ 



THE METHOD OF NATUliE. 187 

Jtival of the xnU^Mim-X and the return to its 
a strong light on the always intc^resting 
in and Nature. We are forcil>ly re- 
..ixled of th*^ Vi want. There is no ntan ; there 
hath never been. Tlie Inttdlw.'t still asks tliat a 
nian may Ixi Ixjrn. Tlie fiauie of life flickei-s feebly 
in human Ijreasts. We (l<imand of men a richness 
and universality we do not fin<L Great men do not 
cfjntent us. It is their solitude, not their for^je, 
that makes them c<mspicuous. There is s^jmewhat 
imligent and tedious al>out tliem. They are jxx^rly 
tied U) one th<jught. If they are prophets they are 
egotists ; if iK>lite and various they are shallow. 
How tardily men arrive at any result! how tardily 
they pass from it tfj another ! The crystal sphere 
of thought is as concentrical as the ge^jlogical struc- 
ture of the globe. As our w^ils and rocks lie in 
strata, (j^juwrntric strata, so do all men's thinkings 
run lat(irally, never vei-tically. Here wjmes by a 
great in^iuisitor with auger and plum}>-line, and 
will bore an Artesian well through our conventions 
and theories, and pierce to the core of things. But 
as scx»n as he probes the crust, Ixihold gimlet, 
pluml>-line, and philosoj^her take a latf^ral direc- 
tion, in spite of all resistance, as if mnrn strong 
wind twk everj'thing off its fe^t, and if you wme 
month after month to see what progress our re- 
former has made, — not an inch lias he pierced, — 



u 



188 THE METHOD OF NATCTRE. 

you still find him with new words in the c 
floating- about in new parts of the same o* 
crust. The new book says, ' I will gi 
kej^ to nature,' and we expect to go ]'' e a thunder- 
bolt to the centre. But the thuncv-^r is a surface 
phenomenon, makes a skin-deep cut, and so does 
the sage. The wedge turns out to be a rocket. 
Thus a man lasts but a very little while, for his 
monomania becomes insiipportably tedious in a few 
months. It is so with every book and person : and 
5'et — and yet — we do not take up a new book or 
meet a new man without a pulse-beat of expecta- 
tion. And this invincible hope of a more adequate 
interpreter is the sure prediction of his advent. 

In tlie absence of man, we turn to nature, which 
stands next. In the di\'ine order, intellect is pri- 
mary ; nature, secondary : it is the memory of the 
mind. That which once existed in intellect as pure 
law, has now taken body as Nature. It existed al- 
ready in the mind in solution ; now, it has been 
precipitated, and the bright sediment is the world. 
We can never be quite strangers or inferiors in na- 
ture. It is flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone. 
But we no lonsfer hold it by the hand ; we have 
lost our miraculous power ; our arm is no more 
as strong as the frost, nor our will equivalent to 
gra%aty and the elective attractions. Yet we can 
use nature as a convenient staudai-d, and the 



THE METHOD OF NATURE. 189 

meter of our rise and fall. It has this advan- 
r tage s a witness, it cannot be debauched. When 
■^ man jurses, nature still testifies to truth and love. 
WQmay therefore safely study the mind in na- 
tur. because we cannot steadily gaze on it in 
mill ; as we exj^lore the face of the sun in a 
'"?, when our eyes cannot brook his direct splen- 

ut seems to me therefore that it were some suit- 

le pjean if we shouhl piously celebrate this hour 

exploring the method of nature. Let us see 

^ ^^, as nearly as we can, and try how far it is 

/ •Sil'sferable to the literaiy life. Every earnest 

lance we give to the realities around us, with in^ 

'art_tojfiani, j)roceeds from a holy impulse, and 

really songs of praise. What difference can it 

lake whether it take the shape of exhortation, or 

A passionate exclamation, or of scientific state- 

pient ? These are forms merely. Through them 

e express, at last, the fact that God has done 

'iu8 or thus. 

In treating a subject so large, in which we must 
^' acessarily appeal to the intuition, and aim much 
-^ lore to suggest than to describe, I know it is not 
easy to speak with the precision attainable on top- 
ics of less scope. I do not wish in attempting to 
paint a man, to describe an air-fed, unimpassioned, 
j 'mpossible ghost. My eyes and ears are revolted 



L 



190 THE METHOD OF NATURE. 

by any neglect of the physical facts, the lImit|ations 
of man. And yet one who conceives the true 
order of nature, and beholds the visible as prij need- 
ing- from the invisible, cannot state his tlu^tight 
Avithout seeming to those who study the phy^'ical 
laws to do them some injustice. There is aiPtin- 
trinsic defect in the organ. Language oversti^t. . 
Statements of the infinite are usually felt to be us 
just to the finite, and blasphemous. Empedoi^V" 
undoubtedly spoke a truth of thought, when -I 
said, " I am God ; " but the moment it was ou<^r 
his mouth it became a lie to the ear ; and the v^^^- 
revenged itself for the seeming arrogance by ^tJi 
good story about his shoe. How can I hope io\ 
better hap in my attempts to enunciate spiritua 
facts ? Yet let us hope that as far as we receive 
the truth, so far shall we be felt by every true per 
son to say what is just. 

The method of nature : who could ever analyz( 
it? That rushing stream will not stop to be ob 
served. We can never surprise nature in a corner! 
never find the end of a thread ; never tell where to 
set the first stone. The bird hastens to lay her egg \ 
the egg hastens to be a bird. The wholeness wi 



admire in the order of the world is the result of in- 
finite distribution. Its smoothness is the smooth 
ness of the pitch of the cataract. Its permanency 
is a perpetual inchoation. Every natural fact is a' 



V- 



THE METHOD OF NATURE. 191 

emanation, and that from which it emanates is an 
emanation alsc, and from every emanation is a new 
emanation. If anything coukl stand still, it would 
he crushed and dissipated by the torrent it resisted, 
and if it were a mind, would be crazed ; as insane 
persons are those who hold fast to one thought and 
do not flow with the course of nature. Not the 
cause, but an ever novel effect, nature descends al- 
ways from above. It is unbroken obedience. The 
beauty of these fair objects is imported into them 
from a metaphysical and eternal spring. In all 
animal and vegetable forms, the physiologist con- 
cedes that no chemistry, no mechanics, can account 
for the facts, but a mysterious principle of life must 
be assumed, which not only inhabits the organ but 
makes the organ. 

How silent, how spacious, what room for all, yet 
without place to insert an atom ; — in graceful 
succession, in equal fulness, in balanced beauty, the 
dance of the hours goes forward still. Like an 
odor of incense, like a strain of music, like a sleep, 
it is inexact and boundless. It will not be dissected, 
nor unravelled, nor shown. Away profane phil- 
oso2)her ! seekest thou in nature the cause ? This 
refers to that, and that to the next, and the next to 
the third, and everything refers. Thou must ask 
in another mood, thou must feel it and love it, thou 
must behold it in a spirit as grand as that by which 

(0 



v.vj THK AfKriion or XArrun, 

it <^\ists. oro tlunv ^^uist know (lu^ l;n\ . Known it, 
will not Ih\ Unt s;l:\illy lu^lovtHl nml o.ijovoil. 

'V\\o sinnilt;moons l\l\> thvonuhont \\\o wholo hinly. 
tho oqnnl sowing oi innnn\tM';iblo «>n*ls withv)nt (i»o 
loast onij^huv^is or jn'ot'tM-ono^^ io ;in\, Init tho sto:uly 
«logv;ul;ilion ol onoh to tho snootv^s of nil. allows (ho 
nnilorstantliiig no |>lnoo to wi>rU. Natnro oan only 
ho oinuvivi^l ns oxisting to a nniv»M'sal ami not io a 
]>artioular onil : to a nnivorso «>f onils. ami n*>t ((> 
ono. — a wo\U of ('vsfaaij, io ho ro|nvsontiHl hv a 
oiirnlar tnovomont. as intontion nxight ho signitioil 
hv a straiirlit lino o( Uotinito loniith. Kaoh otVoot 
stixMigthons ovovY othov. Thon^ is no rovolt in all 
tho kii\s;xlon\s front thi' oonnnonwi\il : no Jotaoh- 
inont oi an indiviihial. llonoo tho oatholio I'harao- 
tor whioh niaUos ovovv loaf an oxponont o{ l\\o 
world. \VluM\ wo hi^hoKl thi> lanilsoapo in a pootio 
Sjurit^ \\o Ao not rooUiM\ individnals. Natnro knows 
noithor pahn nor oak. hut only vou'otahlo lifo. whii'h 
spronts into foivsts. auil fovstoons tho gloho with a 
garland of grassos and \ inos. 

That no siniilo ond mav ho soloi'ttnl and naturo 
jntlgod (horohy. appoars fnun this, that if man hini- 
solf ho oonsidovod as tlu> ond. and it h»^ assnniod 
that tho tinal oanso o( tho world is (o niako holy or 
wiso or hoantifnl n>on. wo ,><oo that it has ni>t sno- 
iH>odovl. Koad altornatolv in natnral and in v'v'^ 
history, a troatiso of astivuoniy, for cxaniplo. witli 1^ 



77//'; METIIHI) OF N ATI/ II I':. ]WPt 

It voliiMic oC Vrc.nrh Mhfi,(yi/rt'M pour Hcrrir. Wfif-n 
w<! h;i.v»; h]M'\\\. our won(l<:r in conifxiiiiif.^ \\m v/',mU'^ 
im lir»M|»it,;i,li(,y wifli wliiffi hoon iNuium irirriH off 
fK'Vv (innaifK'iitH wiUionf, <'.ii<l info \\(;v wi(l<! r-oriirnon, 
HH ffiHf, fiH t,li<', friJulr<;jiorr!H rfiul«; coral, - HuriH and 
j»lun<'.fH }»oH))if.!il>K; U> koijIh, — anJ ih<rn HlioH>;n ih« 
HJf^hf io lo<»l< inf,o iJiiH r;onri of lioulx (^u;i,f/»rw;, un<l 
H«!<; ih<! ^arri<5 that, ih play«;rl ilHin',, — 'lnl<<; and rnar- 
Hhal, al)l/ and fn;wlarn(;, — a ^anif>lin;; f,al»l<; wh<'.r<5 
ofM'h in laying' t,ra|)H for tlic r>Ui<tr, wh<;nr flic <fi'l U 
ever f)y HoriK; lie, ur f<:f,<'li f,o ouf.wit, yofjr riv;il ;in'l 
rnifi liini wif.li ihin Holcrnn fop in wi^ and Htarw, — 
llif; kin^ ; — onf; can liardly hdf) aH^in^ if iliin 
()l;inct, Ih a fair Hpcfiifrx fi ot f h«? ho f^i-AwvowH aMtrmi- 
<»rriy, and if ho, whether the, ex}»enrneni fiave not 
f,'i,ih-,d, ;ind wlielJier- i>, he rjnif,e, woflli while f,o rruiko 
more, and ghif tJu; innocjent h\)'.U'M with ho poor an 
art,i(de. 

I ihird< we fr-cl not, rnneJi ofherw/Hf; if, iriHtead of 
heholdin^i; foolinh TiationH, we take tfie, ^reat and 
wiHe uu-u, f,}ie, rrrninent koijIh, and narrowly inniieefc 
iheir l)ioj.a-a|>hy. Nrtne of thern Her^n Ijy himnejf, 
and liiH fierformanee compared with hin promise, ov 
idea, will jnHiify the eoHt r»f tli;i,t r',normr»nH apparatuH 
of Micann by wliieh thin Hjjotted and defective per- 
Hon wan at lant proeiired. 

'Vi> (jiicHtionH of tliiH w>rt, Nature replieH, " I ^-ow." 
All in naxeimt, infant. When we arc A\7//'m\ with 

vo(,. r. I'! 



1*^4 TiiF MFriion or XArrRE. 

tho arithmotio of the savnut toiUuy; to I'oniputo tho 
lonirth of hor lino, tho ivtuvu of liov imivvo, wo aro 
stoailioil l\v tho povooption that a git^at tloal is thniiii'; 
that all sooins just boi;\in : ivnioto aiir.s aro m ai't- 
ivo aooomplishinont. A\ o lan point nowhoiv to 
anvthi"^«si' tinal : but toiulonov av>iv:u*s on all haiuls: 
planot, systonu constollation, total uaturo is gnnv- 
insr like a tiohl of inai/.o in elulv : is booonnnii- sonic- 
what olso ; is in lapitl niotanioiphosis. Tho oujbrvo 
does not nuMV stvivo to bo man, than youtlor burr 
of liiiht wo oall a nolnila tomls to bo a rinu', a I'oni- 
ot, a «ilobo, aiul paivnt of now stars, ^^'hy shonlil 
nt>t thou thoso niossionrs of Voisaillos strut and 
plot for tabonivts ami ribbons, for a soason, with- 
out pivjmlioo to thoir faoulty to nui on bottor 
orranils by auil bv ? 

But Natuiv soonis furthor to roply, * 1 havo von- 
tuivd so iivoat a stako as ujv snoooss, in no sin<ilo 
oroatutv. 1 havo not yot arrivotl at any outk Tho 
o-anlonor aims to proiluoo a thio poaoh or poar, but 
my aim is tho hoalth of tho wholo troo, — n>ot, 
stom. leaf, tlowor. ami sooil, — anil by no moans 
tho pampering" of a moustixnis periearp at tho ex- 
pense of all tho other fnuetions.' 

In short, the spirit ami peeuliarity of that im- 
pression nature makes on us is this, that it dix^sS 
not exist to any one or to any nmnber of partionlai* 
ends, but to uumberless aiMl eiulless bonetit ; tliat 



THE MF/ni()!> OF S'A'KJItE. V.)^i 

thoro is in it no piivat/; wilJ, no rebel Itjaf or Jirnb, 
but tlie whole iH opprcHHod by one Huperincunibent 
tendency, obeyw that redundaney or exfjcHH of life 
whieh in (5oriHciouH b(;in^B we call (icMany. 

With thiH concAiptlttii oi ilia j^eniuH or method of 
nature, let uh go baek to man. It in tnie he pn> 
tenflH to give iuicoutit of himhelf t/> himwilf, but, at 
liiHt, wlmt huH he to recite but tlie fa/;t that there h 
a Life not t/> )>e dew;ribed or known olliei-wiKc than 
l)y poHHCHHion ? Wliat accx^unt can he give of hw 
CHHence more than ao it vmn to hcJ The rc/ijol raar- 
8on, tlie (fXiu-a of Ciod, wtcmn the only deHcriptlon 
of our multiform but ever identical faf;t. 7'herr; h 
virtue, there in geniuK, there in Hwx-JiHH, or there i» 
not. There iw the incoming or the receding of 
God : that in all we can aff i rm ; and we can Hho w 
neither how nor why. Self-accusation, remorse, 
and the didiu^tic morals of H<;lf-flenial and wtnfe 
with sin, in a view we are constrainti^l by our eon- 
Htitution t() take of the fact w;en from the platform 
of action ; but seen from the ]>latforTn of intellef> 
tion there is nothing for us ]>ut praise and wonder. 

1'lie termination of the world in a man a]»pears 
U) be th<j last victory of int<;]ligence. TIte uiiiver- 
sal does not attra/;t us until hoxiHcA in an individ- 
ual. Who heeds the waste abyss of [iossibility ? 
The ocean is everywhere the same, but it has no 
cliaracter until seen with the nhore or the ship. 



liH> TUt: METllon OF NArrKK. 

Who \\o\\\{\ v:iliu> :»uv mimlu>r of luUos of Atlantio 
briuo \>omuUHl l>v linos of latitiulo ami loui^itiulo? 
Cwitino it h\ irranito iiH'ks, lot it wash a shoiH> 
whoiv wiso nuMi thvoll, aiul it is tilUnl uith oxpit^s- 
8ii>n ; aiul tlu^ point of j»it>att^st intoivst is w hort^ the 
lanil anil water moot. So nuist wo aihnin> iu man 
tlvo fi)rm of tiio formless, the oonoentiatiou of the 
vast, tl\e house oi reasoji, the eave t>f memovv. See 
the play of thoujihts I what nimble iiipi>»tio eiva- 
turos an> these ! what sanvians, what palaiotheria 
shall be uamoil with these a«»ile movers? The 
j»"rt>at Pan of i>Ul, who was clothed iu a leoi>anl 
»kiu to siii'nify the beautiful variety of things anil 
the firuuiment, his eoat of stars, — was but the ivp- 
ivsentative of thee, () rieh ami various Man! thou 
palaee of sight anil soiuul, earrying iu thy senses 
tht^ uuvvuiuii; anil the niiiht anil the unfathoutable 
ualivxv ; iu thv biaiu, the iivometrv of the C^ity 
of (loil ; iu thy heart, the bower of love anil the 
realms of riirht anil wiivuii". An imliviibuil man is 
a fruit whieh it eost all the fint>g\ung agvs to form 
auil ripen. The history of the gvnesis or the oKl 
mythology ivpeats itself in the experienee of every 
ehiUl. lie too is a ileuu>u or wil tlux^wti into a 
particular ehaos, where he strives ever to leail 
thiuiTS fxou\ ilisouler into oi\ler. Each iniliviibuU 
soul is such iu virtue of its being a power to trans- 
late the worlil into some pirtieular languagv of its 



fj^ 



-i 



riJE METHOD OF NATHRE. VM 

own ; if not into a picture, a statue, or a <lan(ie, — 
wljy, then, into a trarle, an art, a scienw, a njod<i of 
living-, a <;onversation, a diaraoter, an influem^. 
You admire pictures, but it \v> as ini]>o8iSiljlc for 
you to paint a rig:ht jiicture an for grass U) bear 
ap])les. liut when the genius cxnaan, it inakcis fin- 
gers : it is pliancy, and the pov/er of transferring 
the affair in the street into oils and c(^lors. Ra- 
pha<d must l>e }>orn, and Halvator must be bom. 

There is no attra(;tiveness like tliat of a new 
man. The sleepy nations are occupi<jd with their 
political routine, England, France and America 
jca<J Parliamentary Deljat<iS, which no high genius 
now enlivens; and nolxxly will read th(;in v/ho 
trusts his own eye : only they who are d(ic<jive<i by 
the ])opuliir repetition of distinguished names, iiut 
wlien Naj>oleon unrolls his m-ap, the eye is c^)m- 
manded by original power. When Cluitliam leads 
the debaUi, men may well list<in, b<K;ause they must 
listfjn. A man, a personal ascendency, is the only 
great phenomenon. When Nature lias work t^> }>e 
done, she creates a genius to do it. J^ollow the 
great man, and you shall see wliat the v/orld lias at 
heart in tluise ages. There is no omen like that^ 

But wliat strikes us in the fine genius is tliat 
which belongs of right tf> every one. A man 
sliould know himself for a newissaiy ac;tor. A link 
was wanting between two craving parts of nature, 



198 TlIK METHOD OF NATURE. 

ami he was IuuUhI into boin<;' as tho brlcli;^ over 
tJuit yawniuii' nooil, iJie imHliator botwixt two olso 
uumavviaiivablo favts. His two i>arouts hold oai'h 
of Olio of thi> wants, and tho union ol" foroii;n oon- 
stitntions In him onabh^s him to iU> ghully ami 
graot^fully what tlio assomblod human raoo couhl 
not havo snf^ood to ih». lb' knows his niatoiials ; 
ho ap[>lios himst'it" to his work ; ho oannot roail, or 
think, or loi>lv, but ho uuitos tho hitlu>rto soparatotl 
strands inti^ a porfoot oord. Tho tlujughts ho d^:- 
li^hts to uttor aio tho roason ivt" his inojirnati.on. 
Is it for him to aooonnt himsolf ohoap and supor- 
ilmms, or io liui;or by tlu> waysido tor opportuni- 
ties? Hid hi> iu>t o(>mo into boint;' booanso somo- 
thin^' uuist bo ilono whioli ho and no othiu- is and 
does? It" only ho .^irc.s', tho worlil will bo visible 
ononiih. \\c mnnl m>t stnilv whon> to stauil, nor 
to put thiuii's in tavorablo lii^hts ; in him is tho 
lisiht, fn>m him all ihiui's aro illuminatod to thoir 
oontro. What patron shall ho ask for omploymout 
and reward? Ibnvto was ho born, to deliver tho 
thon^iht of his heart from tho nni verso to tho uni- 
verse ; to i\o an oilioe whioh nature eonld not fonv 
g'o, nor he be disohargvd from renderin»i\ and then 
innuoroxi atitiin into tho lu>lv silenoe and eternity 
oxit of whioh as a man he arose. CuhI is rioh, and 
many more nu n than i>no ho liarbors in his bosom, 
biilin>;' their time and tho needs and tho beaut v of 



THE' METHOD OF NATURE. 190 

all. Th not this the theory of every man's genius 
oi- fa^^nilty? Why then goest thou an s^une lios- 
W(;]l or listening worshipper to tliis saint or tf> tliat? 
That is the only lese-majesty. Here ai*t thou with 
whom so long the universe travailed in labor; dar- 
est thou think meanly of thyself whom the stalwart 
Fate Ijrought forth U) unitti his ragged side;;, to 
shoot tlie gulf, to reconcile the irreconcilahhi ? 

Whilst a necessity so great caused tlie man 
to exist, his health and ereetness consist in the 
fidelity with wliicli he transmits influences from 
the vast and universal tx> the point on which his 
genius can act. The ends are momentary ; they 
are vents for the current of inward life which in- 
creases as it i« spent. A man's wisdom is to know 
that all ends are momentaiy, that the best end 
mu«t be superseded by a better. But tliere is a 
mischievous tendency in him U) transfer his thought 
from the life to the ends, to quit his agency and 
rest in his acts : the t^jols run away witli the 
workman, the human with the divine. I conceive 
a man as always spoken to from behind, and un- 
a})le to turn his head and see the speaker, \\\ all 
the millions who have heard the voice, none ever 
saw the face. As children in their pLiy i*un be- 
hind each other, and seize one by the ears and 
make him walk l>efore them, so is the spirit our 
unseen pilot. That well-known voice speaks in all 



198 THE METHOD OF NATURE. 

and lie was hurled into being" as the bridge over 
that yawning need, the mediator betwixt two else 
unmarriageable facts. His two parents held each 
of one of the wants, and the union of foreign con- 
stitutions in him enables him to do gladly and 
gracefully what the assembled human race could 
not have sufficed to do. He knows his materials ; 
he applies himself to his work ; he cannot read, or 
think, or look, but he unites the hitherto separated 
strands into a perfect cord. The^ thouglits he jdg- 
lights to utter a,re the jrea^n^ of . his jincarnatipn. 
Is it for him to account himself cheap and super- 
fluous, or to linger by the wayside for opportuni- 
ties ? Did he not come into being because some- 
thing must be done which he and no other is and 
does ? If only he sees, the world will be visible 
enough. He need not study where to stand, nor 
to put things in favorable lights ; in him is the 
light, from him all things are illuminated to their 
centre. What patron shall he ask for employment 
and reward? Hereto was he born, to deliver the 
thought of his heart from the universe to the uni- 
verse ; to do an office which nature could not fore- 
go, nor he be discharged from rendering, and then 
immerge again into the holy silence and eternity 
out of which as a man he arose. God is rich, and 
many more men than one he harbors in his bosom, 
biding their time and the needs and the beauty of 



\ THE METHOD OF NATURE. 199 

all. Is not this the theory of every man's genius 
or faculty? Why then goest thou as some Bos- 
well or listening worshipper to this saint or to that? 
That is the only lese-majesty. Here art thou with 
whom so long the universe travailed in labor ; dar- 
est thou think meanly of thyself whom the stalwart 
Fate brought forth to unite his ragged sides, to 
shoot the gulf, to reconcile the irreconcilable ? 

Whilst a necessity so great caused the man 
to exist, his health and erectness consist in the 
fidelity with which he transmits influences from 
the vast and universal to the point on which his 
genius can act. The ends are momentary ; they 
are vents for the current of inward life which in- 
creases as it is spent. A man's wisdom is to know 
that all ends are momentary, that the best end 
must be sujoerseded by a better. But there is a 
mischievous tendency in him to transfer his thought 
from the life to the ends, to quit his agency and 
rest in his acts : the tools run away with the 
workman, the human with the divine. I conceive 
a man as always spoken to from behind, and un- 
able to turn his head and see the speaker. In all 
the millions who have heard the voice, none ever 
saw the face. As children in their play run be- 
hind each other, and seize one by the ears and 
make him walk before them, so is the sj)irit our 
vmseen pilot. That well-known voice speaks in all 



>l 



200 THE METHOD OF NATURE. 

langiiages, governs all men, and none ever caugln 
a glimpse of its form. If the man will exactly 
obey it, it will adopt him, so that he shall not any 
longer separate it from himself in his thought ; he 
shall seem to be it, he shall be it. If he listen 
with insatiable ears, richer and greater wisdom is 
tanght him ; the sound swells to a ravishing music, 
he is borne away as with a flood, he becomes care- 
less of his food and of his house, he is the fool of 
ideas, and leads a heavenly life. But if his eye is 
set on the things to be done, and not on the truth 
that is still taught, and for the sake of which the 
things are to be done, then the voice grows faint, 
and at last is but a humming in his ears. His 
health and greatness consist in his being the channel 
through which heaven flows to earth, in short, in the 
fulness in ^^■hieh an ecstatical state takes place in 
him. It is pitiful to be an artist, when by forbear- 
ing to be artists we might be vessels filled with the 
divine overflo\\^ngs, enriched by the circulations of 
omniscience and omnipresence. Are there not mo- 
ments in the history of heaven when the human 
race was not counted by individuals, but was only 
the Influenced, was God in distribution, God rush- 
ing into multiform benefit ? It is sublime to re- 
ceive, sublime to love, but this lust of imparting as 
from -MS, this desire to be loved, the wish to be 
recognized as individuals, — is finite, comes of a 
lower strain. 



THE METHOD OF NATURE. 201 

Shall I say then that as far as we can trace the 
natural history of the soul, its health consists in 
the fulness of its reception ? — call it piety, call it 
veneration, — in the fact that enthusiasm is organ- 
ized therein. What is best in any work of art but 
that part which the work itself seems to require 
and do ; that which the man cannot do again ; that 
which flows from the hour and the occasion, like 
the eloquence of men in a tumultuous debate ? It 
was always the theory of literature that the word 
of a poet was authoritative and final. He was 
supposed to be the mouth of a divine wisdom. 
We rather envied his circumstance than his talent. 
We too could have gladly prophesied standing in 
that place. We so quote our Scriptures ; and the 
Greeks so quoted Homer, Theognis, Pindar, and 
the rest. If the theory has receded out of modern 
criticism, it is because/we have not had poets. 
Whenever they appear, they will redeem their own 
credit. 

This ecstatical state seems to direct a regard to 
the whole and not to the parts ; to the cause and 
not to the ends ; to the tendency and not to the act. 
It respects genius and not talent ; hope, and not 
possession ; the anticipation of all things by the 
intellect, and not the history itself ; art, and not 
works of art ; poetry, and not experiment ; virtue, 
and not duties. 



i:Ow Tfn: MFinoi^ or yAVi ,h'K, 

Thoiv is Ui* olVu'i* or fimotivMi o( m;\n h\\{ is 
rijilith ilisohai-iiXHl by this ilivino mo(hv)il. ;uul notU- 
iuii' that is not noxiows to him if dotuohvul fnmi its 
uuiYoi\s;U ivhitious. Is it his wimU in (ho wovhl to 
stiulv uatuiv, i>r tho hiws o( tho woiM .' Lit him 
howaiv of pivposiuji" io himsolf any cud. Is it for 
uso ? uatuvo is ih>hasoil, as if ono K>okiu\i- at tho 
o<vai\ van ivnunnlnn" only tho [>rioo of lish. Ov is 
it for vUoasmv? ho is uunkoil ; thtMo is a oortaiu iu- 
fatiiatiuiT air in woods and mouiitaitis Nvhioh thaws 
on tho iiUor \o want ami misory. Thoit^ is sonn>- 
thinji" sooial and intnisiyo xn thi^ naturo v>f all 
thiniis : thoy sooU to ponotrato and oyorjuuvor oa<'h 
tho uatiiiv of oyory othor oivatiuv, and itself ulono 
in all moilos and tluvn^hont spaoo and spirit to 
pivyail and posvsoss. Eyory star in hoayiMi is dis- 
t*vmtontod and insiitiablo. lu'ayitatii>»i and ohom- 
istry I'annot oontont thoni. Kyor thoy woi> and 
oonrt tho oyo of oyory bolu^hlor. Eyory man wlu> 
oonios into tho win-ld thoy sook to fasoinato aiul 
possoss. to pass into his niinil, for thoy tlosiiv to n^ 
pnblish thonisohos in a niv>ro dolioato worhl than 
that thoy ooonin. It is not oiuniiih that thoy arc 
doYO, Mars, Chion, and tho North Star, in tl»o liray- 
itatinji' tinnaniont : thoy windil hayo snoh poots a.s 
Isowton, llorsohol, and Laplaoo, that thoy may i\^ 
exist and n^n^poar in the liner world of rational 
souls, and till that ivalm with their fame. So is it 



THE MJ/I nofj <)F NATdlU'l. 20.'5 

with Jill ifnffi;if>;njii <>\>'yu'XH. '1'}i<;h<; U;aiitjful l>aHi- 
liHkM H<;t tJ»<'Jr fu'uu; j:;^)o;'ioiiH cycH on f.li<5 aya of 
<)V<;ry cfjijrl, ari'l, if f,})<;y can, cauw; th<'jr nature Ut 
paHH tfirou^^h liin \/Ofj(J(;rin^ cycK into hirn, and w> 
all tliln^^H arc niix<5<J. 

'I'licrcforc man njrjnt l>", on hin ^naiA a^ainHt thin 
'Up of <;nf;f)antfncntH, and muHt look at induia with 
a HnpcrnaturaJ <;y«;. liy piety alone, hy (uniVt-rHtu^ 
with the eauHe of nature, in he Kaf<; and o/nuumwln 
it. And f;e.eauH<; alJ kru}w\cA<^<t ih aKnimilation to 
tlie ot>jerrt of knowh^Jg^e, aH the povvej- or '^cinnH of 
nature iH <M;Htatie, w> niuHt itH »f;ienee or the deH^rnp- 
tion of it b«5. Tli'; j>oet inuKt he a rhapHO<JiMt; hin 
inHfjiration a hoH of hi'ight eaniiaJty ; hix will in it 
only the HMrrend<;r of will U> the f/'ni vernal Power, 
whieh will not \»: wjen fa^re t<> f;ix;e, hut nuint he ra- 
ceived an<i Hyrnpathetieally known. It )» reniark- 
afde that we have out of tfie fleefjH of antiquity in 
the OYwli'M anerihed to tlie half fahulouH YjoroimiMr^ 
a Htatenient of tfii.H fa/.'t whieh c.wcA-y Jover and 
Wjeker of truth will t'<iC/)^i'r/Ai. " It in not j)ro{>er," 
Haid ZoroaHt<;r, " to unde,rHtand the Inf>;llij^ihJe 
with veheniene^;, iMjt if you ineline, your mind, you 
will apprehend it : not t'jo earnently, };ut bringing 
a pure and inquiring eye. You will not underHtand 
it aH when und<;rHtanding w>me j>aH,ieuliir thing, 
but with the flower of the mind. ThingH divine 
are not attainable by moi-talH w)jo understand nan- 



204 THE METHOD OF NATURE. 

sual things, but only the light-ai-med arrive at the 
summit.'' 

And because ecstasy is the law and cause of nar 
ture, therefore you cannot interj.ret it in too high 
and deep a sense. Nature represents the best 
meanins: of the wisest man. Does the simset land- 
scape seem to you the place of Friendship, — those 
purple skies and lovely waters the amphitheatre 
dressed and garnished only for the exchange of 
thought and love of the purest souls ? It is that. 
All other meanings which base men have put on it 
are conjectural and false. You cannot bathe twice 
in the same river, said Ileraclitus ; and I add, a 
man never sees the same object twice : with his 
owni enlargement the object acquires new aspects. 

Does not the same law hold for virtue ? It is 
vitiated by too much will. He who aims at prog- 
ress should aim at an infinite, not at a special ben- 
efit. The reforms whose fame now fills the land 
with Temperance, Anti-Slavery, Non-Resistance, 
No Government, Equal Labor, fair and generous 
as each appears, are poor bitter things when prose- 
cuted for themselves as an end. To every reform, 
in proportion to its energy, early disgusts are inci- 
dent, so that the disciple is surprised at the very 
hour of his first triumphs with chagrins, and sick- 
ness, and a general distrust ; so that he shuns his 
associates, hates the enterprise which lately seemed 



THE METnOD OF NATURE. 205 

80 fair, and meditates to cast himself into the arms 
of that society and manner of life which he had 
newly abandoned with so much pride and hope. 
Is it that he attached the value of virtue to some 
particular practices, as the denial of certain appe- 
tites in certain specified indulgences, and afterward 
found himself still as wicked and as far from hap- 
piness in that abstinence as he had been in the 
abuse ? But the soul can be aj)peased not by a 
deed but by a tendency. It is in a hope that slie 
feels her wings. You shall love rectitude, and not 
the disuse of money or the avoidance of trade ; an 
unimpeded mind, and not a monkish diet ; sympa- 
thy and usefulness, and not hoeing or coopering. 
Tell me not how great your project is, the civil lib- 
eration of the world, its conversion into a Christian 
church, the establishment of public education, 
cleaner diet, a new division of labor and of land, 
laws of love for laws of property ; — I say to you 
plainly there is no end to which your practical fac- 
ulty can aim, so sacred or so large, that, if pursued 
for itself, will not at last become carrion and an of- 
fence to the nostril. The imaginative faculty of 
the soul must be fed with objects immense and 
eternal. Your end should be one inapprehensible 
to the senses ; then will it be a god always ap- 
proached, never touched ; always giving health. A 
man adorns himself with prayer and love, as an 



206 TiiK MFTiion OF NArmK. 

juni lulovus an action. \N hat is sti\»nj;' l»nt «;x>otl- 
wosji, anil wliat is onors;vtio bnt tlio pivsonoo of u 
Imno n>;ui ■' TluMlootriiio in vi\s;vtablo pliysii^loijy 
of tho /J/Y^Y«(r, in' tho gtMun'al inthuvni'o of tu»y 
snbstantv ovor iwxd alH>vo its oUonuoal intluouoo, as 
of an alkali tu- a livin;;' plant, is >n»Mt^ jntnlioaMo of 
num. You uco^l not sjH^ak to n>o, I j»t>»\l not nt> 
whoi'o von aro, that vmi sluniUl o\oit n»a^notisin on 
n\i>. Iv von only wholo and sntVioiont, ami I shall 
t\>ol vou in ovovv part of my life anil fi>vtuno, ami 
1 oan as oasilv ihuliiv tho gravitation o( tUc ^lobo 
as esoapo yonr inthionoo. 

Init thoit^ ai-\> i>thov oxamplos i>f this total aiul 
snpivnio ii\thionoo, hosiilos Nat\Jiv aiul tho oou- 
soionoo. " From tho pinsoutms titv, tho worUl," 
sivy tho Inalnnins, " jwo s^hhmos of frnit aro pri»- 
(Inivd, swoot as tho waters of life; Ia^iw^ ov tho so- 
oiotv of boantifnl sonls, ami l\>otrv, whoso taste is 
liko tho immortal jniot> of N'ishnu.'* ^^ hat is Lin'O, 
anil why is it tl»o ohiof gxHul, bnt booanso it is aa 
overpowering' enthnslasm? Never self -iH>ssossetl ov 
prmlent, it is all abamlonnient. Is it not a eertain 
ailmirable wisilom, pii^ferable to all other ailvan- 
taiivs, and whewof all otliei"s aiv only sei«oiulavies 
ami inilemnities, Invause this is that in wliiih the in- 
dividnal is no lim^i'er his own foolish n\astiM-, bnt in- 
hales an tHloi\nis and eelestial air, is wrappeil n>nnd 
with awe of the objeet, blemlini;' for the time tJiat 



ohj«'-/d, wifii i\ti'. nta] aii/1 tntly %'kh\, ari/1 c^nmnUM 
(',v(ri'y htut'Ai \ti tmittrti witii U'cjitnUmh ittUinini? 
Wh^tt v/<j )i|x-,;tk truly, — w nM fii? only nu\iA\f\>y 
who !)♦ n//f/ jri l/;v<? ? Iiij* inw'u^i frcMoin auA mSU 
I'uUi — hi h rufi mt iinu'}t d/^th ? JI<; who w iii iovtt 
ht wiw. an/1 w \n'ji'A>ut\u'^ mmr^ ¥4'A% n/;wly f;v<?ry 
Samu: itit UnfiiH at th'; (At'yjd U;lov<'/l, tirawiui^ irom 
h with hw «y<^ an/i hj>^ mjn/j th//^j virtju^ whi/;h it 
j)<rm(im*iH. 'VSn'.ntUtrti if tfa? o\/yi*d }h; n//t /t«/;lf 2i 
i'ly'tti'/ and cxiniwiiu'^ «//tj|, h/; \irt'.mui\y hxhmmin it, 
I'tiii J,h<; l/;v«j tmumun in hin niind, an/J th/? w'tadoni 
it l;roijj(ht him ; an/J it mtivt^ a n/^w an/J Ui'/)t*'.r 
o)t'y'i^.. An/J t,h/j t'cujt/rtt why all nj/jj hottor l/;v/; m 
]h'A'/a\U¥', it iiMtUa lip an/J n//t /J/;wn ; a«f/i/'<^ an/J n'/t 
d'j«|>{iii'«. 

A/i/J whiit i« (icttiun but f'jn/;r l//v/{, a Joy/; inif//fr- 
>*//nal, a 1/;'//; //f IIj/j ttifwar an/1 ifi^rfcMitm tff thing*, 
an/J a (U^ira t/> /J raw a n/;w (n/;trir/5 or /5/>[>y of tJi/j 
Hani/;? It l/;/>l<)» f/> th/; r^aiiw; an/1 lif/; ; it \tr<H'Ai*'A\n 
ii'itii v/itJji/i outwar/J, wfiiJ><t 'J'al/;nt j(/x;» fr/>ni witl*- 
ont inwar/J. 'I'ah^nt fjn/J» it« twAch, nudUtftU^ nut\ 
(mi\n, in )«/>/;i/?f.y, t',%iaiM for <;x}jlt/iti//n, an/J g/><;« t/> 
til/; )^;(jl only f//r j//>w<;r t/> worlf. Cfcjiiun h lin own 
<;n/J, and tliawti itn UKtatm uttd iUa niy\h of itn ar/hi- 
U'A^MVc, ft(}tfi wItJjin, i^oiu}i; n.\)t'(fA(\ ou\y for awMani-Ai 
an/J n]nnriMUff\ an w/; Ht\'A]A, our voicA ami j/hraw^; 
f/> th/; tiihi^tuji an/J cUnnu^/ir tff tJu; /;ar w<; »|x;ak 
to. All y//ur lifArinw^ of all WUiVAUxntu^ woul/i «i/y/;r 



208 THE MEiiion Oh s.wruE. 

v\\x\h\v von to ant'u'lpaU^ ono ol" its thon^liiH or ox- 
pvossit»ns, ami y*^t oavh is natural ami t'amiliar 
as houst^lioltl wcuhIs. n«>ri> about us coils forovor 
tlu> auciiMil (Miiniua, so old auil so uiuitt(M'al)lt>. Ho- 
liold ! tluM»> is (he sun, aud tho laiu, aud tlii' rocks; 
{\w old sun, (lu> t)ld st(»ut>s. lloNV i>asy woro it to 
ilosoribo all this litly : yot no word can pasH. Njv 
tui\« is a uuitt\ mill man, Ium- artimilato, s[)(>a]iinj>' 
hrotlun-, lo ! ho also is a iuut(>. ^ 1 1 wlun (Jonins 
arrivt>s, its s|u>»H'h is liK(> a riviM- ; it. has no straiu- 
inn' to (losorilus more than tluio is straininj;" in na- 
tur(> to exist. \\ luMi thought is best, tluMi' is most 
t>f it. Clouius shods wisilom likt> [)tMt'unu\ and atl- 
vt>rtisos us that it Hows out of a deeper sonroo than 
tin' l"ort\!;oin<4; sileuet>, that it knows so di*oply ami 
s|)i\iks so nnisieally, because it is itself a uuitation 
oi the thiui;' it describes. It is siui ami mot)u and 
w.i\t' and tiri> in nuisii', as astronomy is thought 
aud haiiuouy in masses of matter, 

What is all history but (he Wi>ik «>f Itleas, a roi^ 
ord of the iueomputible energy whieh his inlinito 
aspirations infuse into man? Has auythiuj;' i;rand 
and lastinj;- been Mono? Who did it? Plainly not 
any u»au, but all ukmi : it was (lie provalcnco ami 
. inunilatiou of an idea, ^^'hat brought the pilgrims 
here? One utau says, civil liberty; another, (ho 
desire of l\>uudiug- a church ; and a third discovcva 
(hat (he motive forei> was ]>lantatiou antl trado. 



THE METHOD OF NATURE. 209 

But if the Puritans could rise from the dust they 
could not answer. It is to be seen in wliat tlic^y 
were, and not in what they designed; it was the 
growth and expansion of the human race, and re- 
sembled herein the sequent Revolution, which was 
not begun in Concord, or Lexington, or Virginia, 
but was the ovei-flowing of the sense of natural 
right in every clear and active spirit of the period. 
Is a man boastful and knowing, and his own mas- 
ter? — we turn from him without hope : but let 
him be filled with awe and dread before the Vast 
and the Divine, whicli uses him glad to be used, 
and our eye is riveted to the f;hain of events. What 
a doljt is ours to that old i(;ligion wliich, in tlie 
childhood of most of us, still dw(,'lt like a sabbath 
morning in the country of New England, teaching 
privation, self-denial and sorrow ! A man was born 
not for prosperity, but to suffer for the benefit of 
others, like the noble rock-maple which all around 
our villages bleeds for the service of man. Not 
praise, not men's acceptance of our doing, but the 
spirit's holy errand through us absorl^ed the thought. 
How dig-nified was this ! How all that is called tal- 
ents and success, in our noisy capitals, becomes 
buzz and din }>efore this man-worthiness ! How 
our friendships and the complaisances we use, shame 
us now I Sliall we not quit our companions, as if 
they were thieves and pot-companions, and betake 

VOL. I. 14 



210 THF MKrtlOD OF NATrHE. 

ouvsolvos to soiuo desert clit^' of Mount Katnhdin, 
some unvisitoil »\hvss in Mot^sohoail Lnko, to \»o\vail 
our uuuH\MU\v ami to ivinn'or it, niul with it tho 
pt>woi' to cH>nuumnoato apiiu with those shanu's ot" 
a more siuntnl iiU^a? 

Ami what is to ivjrhiee t\>r us the pietv of that 
i*a(H> ? AVe eniuiot have tlieirs ; it siliiles awav 
fi\>ui us ilav bv Jav : but we also i^aii bask in the 
irivat iui>vuinii- whieh vises fi>iwev out o( the eastern 
sea, aiul bo oiu-selves tht^ ehiUh\Mi o(- the lii;l»t. I 
stajul hei\^ to siiv. Let us wovshii> tlie uiiiihtv ami 
t»*anseeuileut 8o\il. It is the oftlee, I (U>ubt not, of 
this asiv to amiul that avbiUeivus ilivou'e whieh the 
suptM*stitiou of many agvs has etYeeteil betwet^i the 
inteUeet ami ht>liness. The lovers of gt^nlness have 
btHMi one elass, the stmleiits of w'is<lom another ; as 
if either eoulil exist in any puritv without the t>thtn-. 
Truth is always luJy, holiness alwtiys wise. 1 will 
that we kkvp terms with sin ami a sinful literatui'e 
ai\<l SiH'ietv no loniivr, but live a life of tliseovery 
ami pert"ormai\ee. Aeeept the iutelU>et, ami it will 
awept us. IV the lowly ministers of that puit^ om- 
nisoienee, ami ilenv it not btvfoiv men. It w ill burn 
up all pnvfane literature, all base eurivnt opinioi\s» 
all the false powei^s of the w orhl, as in a n\oment oi 
time. 1 ilraw f nvm natniv the lesson of an intimato 
divinity. t)ur health ami ivason as men need i>ur 
lvspe«.*t to this faet, agjiinst the hooillessness ami 



THE METHOD OF NATURR. 211 

against the contradiction of society. The sanity of 
riiJin nee<ls the poise of this imrnan<;nt forw. His 
nohih'ty needs the assurance of tiiis in(ixhaustible 
reserved power. How great soever have been its 
bounties, they are a drop to the sea whence they 
flow. If you say, ' The acceptance of the vision is 
alsf> the act of Ood : ' — I shall not seek to pene- 
trate the mystery, I a^lrnit the force of what you 
say. If you ask, ' How can any rules be given for 
the attaintnent of gifts so sulAitne ? ' I shall only 
remark that the solicitations of this spirit, as long 
as there is life, are never forborne. Tenderly, ten- 
derly, they woo and court us from every object in 
natur<i, from every fax;t in lif(i, from every thought 
in the mind. The one condition coupled with the 
gift of truth is its use. That man shall be learned 
who reduceth his learning to practice. Emanuel 
Sw(;denborg affirmed that it was opened to him 
" that the spirits who knew truth in this life, but 
did it not, at death sliall lose their knowledge." 
" If knowledge," said Ali the Caliph, " calleth unto 
practice, well; if not, it goeth away." The only 
way into nature is tr> enact our best insigiit. In- 
stantly we are higher poets, and can speak a deeper 
law. Do what you know, and perception is con- 
verted into character, as islands and continents were 
built by invisilde infusories, or as these forest leaves 
absorb light, electricity, and volatile gases, and the 



212 TIIK METHOD OF NATURE. 

gnarlod oak to live a tliousaml yoars is the arrest 
and tixation of the most vohvtilo and ethereal cur- 
rents. The doctrine of this Sni)renie Presence is a 
cry of joy and exultation. AVho shall daie think 
he has come late into natiu-e, or has missed any- 
thin<j excellent in the past, who seeth the admirable 
stars of possibility, and the yet untouched continent 
of hope glittering' with all its mountains in the vast 
West ? I praise with wonder this great reality, 
which seems to drown all things in the deluge of its 
light. AVliat man seeing this, can lose it from his 
thoughts, or entertain a meaner subject? The en- 
trance of this into his mind seems to bo the birth 
of man. We eaunot describe the natural history 
of the smd, but we know that it is divine. I can- 
not tell if these wonderful cpialities which house to- 
day in this mortal frame shall ever re-assemblo in 
equal activity in a similar frame, or whether they 
have before had a natural history like that of this 
body you see before you ; but this one thing I know, 
that these cpialities did not now begin to exist, can- 
not be sick with my sickness, nor buried in any 
grave; but that they circulate through the Universe: 
before the woild was, they were. Nothing can bar 
them out, or shut them in, but they penetrate tlie 
ocean and land, space and time, foini an essence, 
and hold the key to universal nature. I draw from 
this faith, courage and hope. All things ai'e luiowu 



THE METHOD OF NATURE. 213 

to the soul. It is not to be suq^rised by any com- 
munication. Nothing can be greater than it. Let 
those fear and those fawn who will. The soul is in 
her native realm, and it is wider than space, older 
than time, wide as hope, rich as love. Pusillanim- 
ity and fear she refuses with a beautiful scorn ; 
they are not for her who puts on her coronation 
robes, and goes out through universal love to uni- 
versal power. 



MAN THE REFORMER. 

A LECTURE READ BEFORE THE MECHANICS' APPRENTICES' 
LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, BOSTON, JANUARY 25, 1841. 



MAX THE REFORMER. 



Me. President, and Gentlemen, 

I WISH to offer to your consideration some 
thoughts on the particuLir and general relations of 
man as a reformer. I sliall assume that the aim 
of each young man in this association is the very 
highest that belongs to a rational mind. Let it be 
granted tliat our life, as we lea<l it, is common and 
mean ; that some of those offices and functions for 
which we were mainly created are grown so rare in 
society that the memory of them is only kept alive 
in old books and in dim traditions ; that prophets 
and poets, that beautiful and perfect men we are 
not now, no, nor have even seen such ; that some 
sources of human instruction are almost unnamed 
and unknown among us ; that the community in 
which we live will hardly bear to be tfdd that 
every man should be open to ecstasy or a divine 
illumination, and his daily walk elevated by inter- 
course with the spiritual world. Grant all this, 
as we must, yet I suppose none of my auditors will 
deny that we ought to seek to establish ourselves 



218 MAN THE REFORMER. 

in sucli disciplines aiul (.'ourses as will deserve that 
o-uidance and cleaver communication with the spir- 
itual nature. And further, I will not dissend)le 
my hope that each person whom I address has felt 
his own call to cast aside all evil customs, timidi- 
ties, and limitations, and to be in his place a free 
and helpful man, a reformer, a benefactor, not con- 
tent to slip along through the world like a footman 
or a spy, escaping by his nimbleness and apologies 
as many knocks as he can, but a brave and upright 
man, who must find or cut a straight road to 
everything excellent in the earth, and not only go 
honorably himself, but make it easier for all who 
follow him to go in honor mid with benefit. 

In the history of the world the doctrine of Re- 
form had never such scope as at the present hour. 
Lutherans, llernhutters, eTesuits, Monks, Quakers, 
Knox, Wesley, Swedenborg, Bentham, in their 
accusations of society, all respected something, 
— church or state, literature or history, domestic 
usages, the market town, the dinner table, coined 
money. But now all these and all things else hear 
the trumpet, and must rush to judgment, — Chris- 
tianity, tlie laws, commerce, schools, the farm, the 
laboratory ; and not a kingdom, town, statute, rite, 
calling, man, or woman, but is threatened by the 
new spirit. 

What if some of the objections whereby our in- 



MAN THE REFORMER. 219 

stitutions are assailed are extreme and speculative, 
and the reformers tend to idealism ? Tliat only 
shows the extravagance of the abuses which have 
driven the mind into the opposite extreme. It is 
vk'hen your facts and persons grow unreal and fan- 
tastic by too much falsehood, that the scholar flies 
for refuge to the world of ideas, and aims to re- 
cruit and replenish nature from that source. Let 
ideas estal)lish their legitimate sway again in \so- 
ciety, let life be fair and poetic, and the scholars 
will gladly Ixi lovers, citizens, and philanthropists. 
It will afford no security from the new ideas, 
that the old nations, the laws of centuries, the 
property and institutions of a hundred cities, are 
Ijuilt on other foundations. The demon of reform 
has a secret door into the heart of evei-y lawmaker, 
of every inhabitant of every city. The fact that 
a new thought and hope have dawned in your 
breast, should apprise you that in the same hour a 
new light broke in upon a thousand private hearts. 
That secret which you would fain keep, — as soon 
as you go abroad, lo ! there is one standing on the 
doorstep to tell you the same. There is not the 
most bronzed and shar-pened money-catcher who 
does not, to your consternation almost, quail and 
shake the moment he hears a question prompted 
by the new ideas. We thought he had some sem- 
blance of ground to stand upon, that such as lie at 



220 MAN THE HFFOILVER. 

least woiiltl ilio Imid ; Init he ti-embles ai\d flees. 
Then the sehohir says, ' Cities and eoaelies shall 
never impose on me again ; for behold every soli- 
tary dream of mine is rnshing to fnlfihuent. That 
fancy T had, and hesitated to ntter because you 
would laugh, — the bi-oker, the attorney, the mar- 
ket-man are saying" the same thing. Had I waited 
a day longtu' to speak, 1 had been too late. Bo- 
hold, State Street thinks, and AVall Street doubts, 
and begins to prophesy ! ' 

It cannot bo wondered at that this general in- 
quest into abuses should arise in the bosom of 
society, when one considers the practical impedi- 
ments that stand in the way of \'ii'tuous young 
men. The young man, on entering life, finds tho 
way to lucrative employments blocked with abuses. 
The wavs of trade are o■ro^^^^ selfish to the bordei-s 
of theft, and supple to the borders (if not beyond 
the borders) of frautl. The employments of com- 
mence are not intrinsicallv unfit for a man, or less 
genial to his faculties ; but these are now in their 
general course st> vitiated by derelictions and 
abuses at which all connive, that it requires more 
vigor and resoiirces than can be expected of every 
young man, to right himself in them ; he is lost in 
them ; he cannot move hand or foot in them. Has 
he genius and virtue? the less does he find them 
fit for hiui to grow in, and if he would thrive in 



MAN THE REFORMER. 221 

them, he must sacrifice all the brilliant dreara3 of 
boyhood and 3'outh as dreams ; he must forj^et the 
prayers of his childhood and must take on him the 
harness of routine and obsequiousness. If not so 
minded, nothing is left Idm but to begin the world 
anew, as he does who puts the spade into the 
ground for food. We are all implicated of course 
in this charge; it is only necessary to ask a few 
questions as to the progress of the articles of com- 
merce from the fields where they grew, to our 
houses, to become aware that we eat and drink and 
wear perjury and fraud in a hundred commodities. 
How many articles of diily consumption are fur- 
nished us from the West Indies ; yet it is said that 
in the Spanish islands the venality of the officers 
of the government lias passed into usage, and that 
no article passes into our ships which has not l^een 
fraudulently cheapened. In the Spanish islands, 
every agent or factor of the Americans, unless he 
be a consul, has taken oath that he is a Catliolic, 
or has caused a priest to make tliat declaration for 
him. The abolitionist has shown us our dreadful 
de}>t to the southern negro. In the island of 
Cuba, in addition to the ordinary abominations of 
slavery, it appeal's only men are bought for the 
plantations, and one dies in ten every year, of 
these miserable bachelors, to yield us sugar. I 
leave for those who liave the knowledge the part 



222 MAN THE REFORMER. 

of sifting the oaths of oar custom-houses ; I will 
not inquire into the oppression of the sailors ; I 
will not pry into the usages of our retail trade. I 
content myself with the fact that the general sys- 
tem of our trade (apart from the blacker traits, 
which, I hope, are exceptions denounced and un- 
shared by all reputable men), is a system of seK- 
ishness ; is not dictated by the high sentiments of 
human nature ; is not measured by the exact law 
of reciprocity, much less by the sentiments of love 
and heroism, but is a system of distrust, of con- 
cealment, of superior keenness, not of giving but 
of takino- advantage. It is not that which a man 
delights to unlock to a noble friend ; which he 
meditates on with joy and self-approval in his hoiu* 
of love and aspiration ; but rather what he then 
puts out of sight, only showing the brilliant result, 
and atoning for the manner of acquiring, by the 
manner of expending it. I do not charge the mer- 
chant or the manufacturer. The sins of our trade 
belong to no class, to no indi\'idual. One j^lueks, 
one distributes, one eats. Every body partakes, 
every body confesses, — with cap and knee volun- 
teers Ills confession, yet none feels himself account- 
able. He did not create the abuse ; he cannot 
alter it. What is he ? an obscure private person 
who must get his bread. That is the vice, — that 
no one feels himself called to act for man, but only 



MAN THE REFORMER. 223 

as a fraction of man. It happens therefore that 
all such mgenuous souls as feel within themselves 
the irrepressible strivings of a noble aim, who by 
the law of their nature must act simply, find these 
ways of trade unfit for them, and they come forth 
from it. Such cases are becoming more numerous 
every year. 

But by coming out of trade you have not cleared 
yourself. The trail of the serpent reaches into all 
the lucrative professions and practices of man. 
Each has its own wrongs. Each finds a tender 
and very intelligent conscience a disqualification 
for success. Each requires of the practitioner a 
certain shutting of the eyes, a certain dapperness 
and compliance, an acceptance of customs, a seques- 
tration from the sentiments of generosity and love, 
a compromise of private opinion and lofty integ- 
rity. Nay, the evU custom reaches into the whole 
institution of property, until our laws which estab- 
lish and protect it seem not to be the issue of love 
and reason, but of selfishness. Suppose a man is 
so unhappy as to be born a saint, with keen per- 
ceptions but with the conscience and love of an an- 
gel, and he is to get his living in the world ; he 
finds himself excluded from all lucrative works ; 
he has no farm, and he cannot get one ; for to earn 
money enough to buy one requires a sort of concen- 
tration toward money, which is the selling himself 



224 MAN THE REFORMER. 

for a number of years, and to him tlie present hour 
is as sacred and inviolable as any future hour. 
Of course, whilst another man has no land, my 
title to mine, your title to yours, is at once vitiated. 
Inextricable seem to be the twinings and tendrils 
of this evU, and we all involve ourselves in it the 
deeper by forming connections, by wives and chil- 
dren, by benefits and debts. 

Considerations of this kind have turned the at- 
tention of many philanthrojiic and intelligent per- 
sons to the claims of manual labor, as a part of 
the education of every young man. If the accumu- 
lated wealth of the past generation is thus tainted, 
— no matter how much of it is offered to us, — we 
must begin to consider if it were not the nobler 
part to renounce it, and to put ourselves into j)ri- 
mary relations with the soil and nature, and ab- 
staining from whatever is dishonest and unclean, 
to take each of us bravely his part, with his own 
hands, in the manual labor of the world. 

But it is said, ' What ! will you give up the im- 
mense advantages reaped from the division of la- 
bor, and set every man to make his own shoes, bu- 
reau, knife, wagon, sails, and needle ? This would 
be to put men back into barbarism by their own 
act.' I see no instant prospect of a virtuous revo- 
lution ; yet I confess I should not be pained at a 
change which threatened a loss of some of the lux- 



MAN THE REFORMER. 225 

uries or conveniences of society, if it proceeded 
from a preference of the agricultural life out of tlie 
belief that our primary duties as men coidd be bet- 
ter discharged in that calling. Who could regret 
to see a high conscience and a purer taste exercis- 
ing a sensible effect on young men in theii- choice 
of occupation, and thinning the ranks of competi- 
tion in the labors of commerce, of law, and of 
state? It is easy to see that the inconvenience 
would last but a short time. This would be great 
action, which always opens the eyes of men. When 
many persons shaU have done this, when the major- 
ity shall admit the necessity of reform in all these 
institutions, their abuses will be redressed, and the 
way will be open again to the advantages which 
arise from the division of labor, and a man may se- 
lect the fittest employment for his pecidiar talent 
again, vdthout compromise. 

But quite apart from ihe emphasis which the 
times give to the doctrine that the manual labor of 
society ought to be shared among all the members, 
there are reasons proper to every individual why he 
should not be deprived of it. The use of manual ' 
labor is one which never grows obsolete, and which 
is inapplicable to no person. A man should have 
a farm or a mechanical craft for his culture. We 
must have a basis for our higher accomplishments, 
our delicate entertainments of poetry and philoso- 



226 MAN THE REFORMER. 

pliy, In the work of our hands. We must have an 
antagonism in the tough world for all the variety 
of our spiritual facilities, or they will not be born. 
JNIanual labor is the study of the external world. 
The advantage of riches remains with him who pro- 
cured them, not with the heir. When I gb into 
my garden with a spade, and dig a bed, I feel such 
an exhilaration and health that I discover that I 
have been defrauding myself all this time in letting 
others do for me what I should have done with my 
o^^^l hands. But not only health, but education is 
in the work. Is it possible that I, who get indefi- 
nite quantities of sugar, hominy, cotton, buckets, 
crockery ware, and letter-paper, by simply signing 
my name once in three months to a cheque in favor 
of John Smith & Co. traders, get the fair share of 
exercise to my faculties by that act which nature 
intended for me in making all these far-fetched 
matters important to my comfort ? It is Smith 
liimself , and his carriers, and dealers, and manufac- 
turers ; it is the sailor, the hidedrogher, the butcher, 
the negro, the hunter, and the planter, who have 
intercepted the sugar of the sugar, and the cotton 
of the cotton. They have got the education, I only 
the commodity. This were all very well if I were 
necessarily^ absent, being detained by work of my 
ovn\, like theirs, work of the same faculties ; then 
should I be sure of my hands and feet ; but now 



MAN THE REFORMER. 227 

I feel some shame before my wood - chopper, my 
ploughman, and my cook, for they have some sort 
of self-sufficiency, they can contrive without my 
aid to bring the day and year round, but I depend 
on them, and have not earned by use a right to my 
arms and feet. 

Consider further the difference between the first 
and second owner of property. Every species of 
property is preyed on by its own enemies, as iron 
by rust ; timber by rot ; cloth by moths ; provis- 
ions by mould, putridity, or vermin ; money by 
thieves ; an orchard by insects ; a planted field by 
weeds and the inroad of cattle ; a stock of cattle 
by hunger ; a road by rain and frost ; a bridge by 
freshets. And whoever takes any of these things 
into his possession, takes the charge of defending 
them from this troop of enemies, or of keeping 
them in repair. A man who supplies his own want, 
who builds a raft or a boat to go a-fishing, finds it 
easy to caulk it, or put in a thole-pin, or mend the 
rudder. What he gets only as fast as he wants for 
his own ends, does not embarrass him, or take away 
his sleep with looking after. But when he comes 
to give all the goods he has year after year collected, 
in one estate to his son, — house, orchard, ploughed 
land, cattle, bridges, hardware, wooden-ware, car- 
pets, cloths, provisions, books, money, — and can- 
not give him. the skill and experience which made 



228 MAS rut: HFron\tKR. 

Imvo ill his own litV, tho son tiiuls his hnnils t'nll, 
— not to iiso tht\so thiiiiis, but (o U>ok nttor thoiii 
mul lUvtVml thoni t"i\nn thoii* natnnil onomios. To 
liiin thoY jviv m»t monns, but jnasto»*s, Thoiv oiuv- 
uiit'^ will not iviiiit ; rust-, niouKl, vonuin, rain, snn, 
tVt'»sliot, tiiv, all soi»o thoii' v^mi, till him with voxa- 
tion, {Vn<l lu^ is ivnvovttHi t'lwni tho i>wnor into a 
watohman m- n w:itoh-iU\i; to this niH^iwino t>t' oM 
and now ohattols, NNhnt a ohniiii^^ ! Instoail of th«> 
iwastovlv iivinl humor :nul souso ot' |H>\\or aiul tVvtil- 
itv of iwsounv in hinisolf : instoad ot" thoso stixMiii^ 
aiul U\'U*\uhI hands, tlioso pioiviiiii' aiul loariuHl oyos, 
that sup|>lo KhIv, auvl that miiihtv and pivvailiuij 
hoart whioh tho tathor had, whom natinv Kntnl and 
foiviwl, whom snow aiul itiiu, wator and laiul, boast 
aiul ti?ih stviutxl all to know and to sorvo, — wo havo 
lunv a puiiv, pivttvt od ^Hn-son, pianloil b\ walU 
and curtains, stovos aiul down KhIs, iH\*»ohos, and 
nion - sorvants and womoii-stvrvants t'nvm tho t^uth 
.and tho skv, and who, bivd to do{HMul on all tlioso, 
is inailo anxious bv all that tuulan^ivi's tJuvso }h»s- 
st^ssiiuis, aiul is i\»n\Hl to s|Hvnd so iiuuvh tinu> in 
jiuanliuii thorn, that ho has tjuito livst siulit of thoir 
original uso, namolv, to holp him to his oiuls, — to 
tho }n\>stH'utiou t>t his lovo : to tho holpiuii' <*f his 
finond, to tho wtu-ship of his (.uhI, to tho onlaiiix^ 
mont of his knowlodiiw to tho sorving of his o\»un- 



MAN 'JUL lU.I'jliMEU. 220 

try, to thxi indul'^t^iwAi ui lii« mntiiiKmt ; and h*; is» 
now wtmt iH c/AUA a rich MJitri, — tluc iunmai arwl 
rijijrj<;r of Ijw rlf'}t*iH. 

llatuitt it hiipiXiftH timt th/i wlu)hi mUimhi, of Iji)»- 
toiy lUiH in tfj/i foi-innah of tli«; jk>'>/-. KnowWJj^e, 
VirtiWi, VovniV ai'<t thxj wii-^Utrutu of ruiiij ov<ir hi« ni> 
CiiHuhUtH, hi« march tr> tluj timniuljii of th/; worhl. 
Every nian ouj^ht to Jiavc tfiitj op[>^ji'turjJty to ^/>n- 
qiwjr t}i<? wor]/i for himmAf. ()h]y hu/Jj jxjrftonH in- 
terest ii», Spaj-tauH, llouiiiim, Barae<iri8, i^n;^ ji^h, 
Ami'j''u'M.nii, who }iave ^Vxx] in thft jaw« of n<:>fi'l, and 
have }iy titfi'iv own wit and r/jight extrlt^atfjd thent- 
«elv<^, an/1 nia/Je nian VuiUiVunxm. 

I <h> mit wi>»h tf> over«taUj thi^j fhx't/ine of [aSytfr^ 
or iruiiiit tfiat every nian KhouW fxi a futismr, any 
more tliiin tliat every man should Ix; a hixift/rt'^rdr 
ItlifiV. In general on* niay «ty tiiat the hiju»l/and- 
man'H iw tij/j ohhi«t awl most univerwal profeKKJon, 
and that where a man d^xjH not yet dLt»f^>ver in him- 
self any fitm^K for one work more tljan an/^ther, 
thi« may Ixi preferr<^l, liut tlie tlixdnna of thxj 
Farm in merely thiis, tliat eveiy nxan ouj^lit tf> stand 
in prinxary relatione with thxi work of the worW; 
ouj^ht t<) do it himh<ilf, and not i/) sufTer the a/'/;i- 
ilent of hin liavinji; a purj»e in his [xx^-ket, or hij* hav- 
ing Win lire/1 U) a/nufi dishonorable and injuriouij 
ci-aft, U) hdvar him from thos<i duties ; and for thi» 
tiiimjii, that labor is G^xl's (Aacath jti ; tliat he only 



280 MAN 77/ A' lih'yoUMKH. 

IB a 8Uu»oro U^arnor, lu^ only caii Iuh'ouu^ a nuiHttM", 
\yI\(> loarns llu^ stMnvts oi lalun", autl who, hy real 
i'nimluL«' extorts t'nmi natiuo its si't*{>trt^ 

Noitlu'r wDiiKl 1 shut my oars to tlio ploa of tlio 
loaruoil professions, ot" tho poet, the ()riost, the huv- 
j^ivcr, aiul uumi ol" study t;t'm'raUy ; uauu^y, that in 
tho oxjHU'itMUH^ ot" all uumi of that ohiss, thti amount 
o( manual hiU»>r whii-h is uooossary to tho maintt"*- 
muut> *)r a family, iu»lis[)oso8 ami tlis(|ualili»>s for 
iutolloi'tual oxortitm. 1 Know, it oftim, pi'rhapa 
usually Imppous that whort^ thoro is a iiiu- (»ri;au- 
iisation, a}>t for pootry ami phili»so|>hy, that imlivid- 
ual limls hims(>l(' i'om|u>lUHl to wait i>n his thoughts; 
to waste several days that lu> u»ay ouhauee and glo- 
rify one ; and is ht^tter taught by a nuHlt>rate and 
dainty exomiso, sneh as ranihling in the titvlds, row- 
ing, skating, hunting, tlum by tl\i> downright drudg- 
ery of the fanner and the smith. 1 W(>ulil not quite 
forget the venorabh^ eonnsid ot" the Egyptian mys- 
teries, whii'li diH-lanul that *' tht>re wt're tw\> paira 
of eyes in man, and it is retinisito that the pair 
whieh are bi>neath shouKl hv elosed, when the pair 
that an> above them ptM-etMve, and that yvln>n the 
pair abm'o are i'lost»d, those whieh are beneath 
should be opened." Yet I will suggest that uo 
separation from labor ean be without si)me loss of 
power and ol" truth to the seer himself; that, I 
ih>nbt not, the faults aiul viees of oxu' literature and 



MAN THE UErOUMER. 231 

philoftop}iy, tliftir too great ihniaxiHH, eff<;tiiiiiacy, and 
rjt<ilan<rlioly, aro attriliiitahl*; tf> thxj eiujrvate'l ami 
sifckly liabits of the liUiiary class. VyttUtv that the 
bwk should aot be quite so goo<l, and thfi bo^>k- 
rrtaker airier and Ixitter, ami not hinis<;lf often a lu- 
dicrous conti-ast to all that he luas v/n'tten. 

But granting tliat for ends so saxjred and df>ar 
some relaxation must l>e had, I think tliitt if a man 
find in hims<df any strong bias t/> jxxitry, to art, to 
the (x»ntempLati ve life, di-awiw^ him tx> these things 
with a devotion imx;rnpatibl<i with goorl husl>amiry, 
tliat man ought to ref^kon early with hims<^iif, and, 
respecting the cj<jmj)en>jations of the Univer-se, ought 
tf> rans^jm himi>^df from tiie duties of e^^>nomy by 
a certain rigor and privation in his halAts. For 
privileges sf> r-are £nd gr-ami, let him not stint t'i 
pay a great tax. Let him \jti a c-mifMiUi, a j>auper, 
and if nee<l Ixi, celibate also. Let him h^arn to eat 
his meals standing, and t^j relish the tast^i of fair 
water ami bla/;k breaxL He may h:Kave tf> other; 
the costly conveniences of housekeeping, and large 
hospitality, and the possession of works of art. L(^ 
him feel that genius is a hospitality, and that he 
who f^n creatfj works of art needs not colhi^rt them. 
He must live in a chamb<ir, and postpone his self- 
imlulgenoe, forewarned and forearmed against that 
f refluent misfortune of men of genius, — the taste for 
luxury. Thiji Ls the ti'agedy of genius : — attempt- 



V 



ing to (Ivivo aloixii: tho odlptlo wUli ouk-* hovso uf the 
lionvtuis juul ivuo luu'so oi tl»o oav[li, tlunt^ is ouly 
lUsooixl aiul niln ami ilowtvt'all tvu-havlot ami flmi^ 
iototn'. 

Tht^ iluty that ovevv man iihoiilil assiuuo }iis own 
vows, sUiouKl oiUl tho instil lit uuis ot" stHvioty to ai*- 
ovniut, and oxaniino thoiv t'ltnosji to hiiu, j^ains in 
oni^Ums^is it' wo UH»k at mir nunlos i>f living'. Is our 
honsokooping' saivnnl ami lumorablo? IXhvs it vaiso 
and inspiiv us, or does it oripplo us iustoad? I 
ouulit to bo aruunl l>v ovorv part and t'luu'tion of 
niY hi>iisohoUl, l>v all mv social t'um*tiivn, by mv 
tHHvnouiv, by my toasting', by my voting, by n\y tvat' 
tio. Yot I aui alnu>st no jvuty to any ot'-thoso 
thing's. l\istoiu iloos it for nu\ givos mo no ^owtvr 
thowf unu, ami rnns mo in dobt tolH>ot. ^^o sjhuuI 
our inoonios t\vr paint anil papor, for a hnmluHl 
tritlos, I know iu>t what, ami not t\>r tho thing's vxf 
a man. i.)ur o\iH>nso is almost all tor oonformitv. 
It is t\vr oako that wo run in dobt ; it is not tho in- 
tolhvt, not tho hoait, not K^anty, not wmship, that 
l^vsts so nmoh. W hv ntHxls miv man Ih> rioli ? 
A\ hy must ho havo horsos, tino giirmonts, lumdsomo 
ajvirtnuvuts, aiwss to pnblio hi>usos and plaoos v»f 
aniusomont? C^nly fvu- want of thought, (nvo his 
miud a now in\agv, and he tloos into a s«.ilitarY gni">- 
don or g^invt to onjoy it, and is riohor with that 
divani than tho too ot" a iountv ovuikl mako him. 



MAN rmc hi: FORM EH. 233 

But wfi are first thouj^htl(i«H, aiul tlicii fijid tliat we 
are iiioueyleKS. We are first f>ensual, and then 
mu>it lie licli. We dare not trust our wit for 
Wiaking our house pleasant to our friend^ and so we 
buy mt-iiia2ivm. He is accustoine<l to carpets, and 
we lia,ve not sufficient (ilmviUiUii' to put floor elijtlis 
out of his rnind whilst he stays in the liouse, and so 
we pile tlui flooj- with carp<its. Let tlie house ratlier 
lie a t<iiji]>le of the Furies of La(;edaimon, fornji<la- 
hle arid holy t^i all, wlileh none but a Spartan may 
ent^ir or so much as behold. As S'Xin as there is 
faith, as soon as there is soci/;ty, c^^mfits and cush- 
iong wil) be left t^i slaves. Exp<;nse will be inven- 
tive arrd heroic. We shall eat luird and lie hard, 
we sliall dwell likiC' tluB ancient Hoiwina in narrow 
tenements, wliilst our public cAiiU'Ma, like theirs, will 
lie worthy for their proportion of the land>>f;ape in 
which we set tliem, for Win versation, for art, for 
muiiic, for worshiji. We sliall be rich tfi great jiur- 
poses ; poor only for selfish oucis. 

^ow wliat help for these evils ? How can tlie 
man who lias learned liut one art, procure all tlie 
convenienwis of life hoiiestly ? Sliall we say all 
we think ? — Perliaps with his own han<L*. Suj[>- 
jK>8e hit oxAleatH or niakfjs tliem ill ; — yet he Imn 
learne<l their lesson. If he cannot do that ? — - 
Tlum [Kirhaps he can go without. Immense wis- 
dom and iiches are in tliat. It is better t^i go v/ith- 



234 MAN THE REFORMER. 

out, than to have tlioin at too great a cost. Let us 
\c:\vn the meaning' of eeononiy. Eeononiy is a 
liigh, hnniane office, a sacrament, when its aim is 
grant! ; when it is the prutlenee of simple tastes, 
when it is practised for freedom, or love, or devo- 
tion. INIueh of tlie economy which we see in honses 
is of a base origin, and is best kept ont of sight. 
Parched corn eaten to-day, that I may have roast 
fowl to my dinner on Sunday, is a baseness ; but 
parched corn and a house with one apartment, that 
1 may be free of all perturbations, that I may be 
serene and docile to what the mind shall si)eak, 
and girt and road-ready for the lowest mission of 
knowledge or goodwill, is frugality for gods and 
heroes. 

Can we not learn the lesson of self-help ? So- 
ciety is fnll of hifirni people, who incessantly sum- 
nuni othei's to serve them. They contrive every- 
where to exhaust for their single comfort the entire 
means and appliances of that luxury to which our 
invention has yet attained. Sofas, ottomans, stoves, 
wine, game-fowl, spices, perfumes, rides, the the- 
ati-e, entertainments, — all these they want, they 
need, and whatever can be sncsiested more than 
these they crave also, as if it was the bread which 
should keep them from starving ; and if they miss 
any one, they represent themselves as the most 
wi'onged and most wret(.'licd persons on eartL 



MAN TEE REFORMER. 235 

One must have been born and bred with them to 
know how to prepare a meal for their learned 
stomach. Meantime they never bestir themselves 
to serve another person ; not they ! they have a 
great deal more to do for themselves than they can 
possibly perform, nor do they once perceive the 
cruel joke of their lives, but the more odious they 
grow, the sharper is the tone of their complaining 
and craving. Can anything be so elegant as to 
have few wants and to serve them one's self, so as 
to have somewhat left to give, instead of being al- 
ways prompt to grab? It is more elegant to an- 
swer one's own needs than to be richly served ; in- 
elegant perhaps it may look to-day, and to a few, 
but it is an elegance forever and to all. 

I do not wish to be absurd and pedantic in re- 
form. I do not wish to push my criticism on the 
state of things around me to that extravagant 
mark that shall compel me to suicide, or to an ab- 
solute isolation from the advantages of civil so- 
ciety. If we suddenly plant our foot and say, — I 
will neither eat nor drink nor wear nor touch any 
food or fabric v/hich I do not know to be innocent, 
or deal with any person whose whole manner of 
life is not clear and rational, we shall stand still. 
Whose is so ? Not mine ; not thine ; not his. But 
I think we must clear ourselves each one by the in- 
terrogation, whether we have earned our bread to- 



236 ^fAN TIIR TiE FORMER. 

day by tlie hearty contribution of onr cnorjijies to 
the eonnnon bonolit ; and we must not ccaso to 
tend to the correction of flagrant wrongs, by lay- 
ing one stone aright every day. 

But the i(U>a which now begins to agitate society 
has a wider scope than our daily employments, our 
households, and the institutions of property. Wo 
are to revise the whole of our social structure, the 
State, the school, religion, marriage, trade, science, 
and exi)lore their foundations in our own nature ; 
we are to see that the world not only fitted the 
former men, but fits us, and to clear ourselves of 
every usage which has not its roots in t)ur own 
mind. What is a man born for but to be a Re- 
former, a Ke-nuiker of what man has made ; a re- 
iiouncer of lies ; a restorer of truth and good, imi- 
tating that great Nature which end)osoms iis all, 
and which sleeps no moment on an old past, but 
every hour repairs herself, yielding us every morn- 
ing a new day, and with every pulsation a new 
life? Let him renounce everything which is not 
true to him, and put all his practices back on their 
first thoughts, and do nothing for which he has not 
the whole world for his reason. If there are in- 
conveniences and what is called ruin in the way, 
because we have so enervated and maimed oui*- 
selves, yet it would be like dying of perfumes to 
sink in the effort to re-attach the deeds of every 
day to the lioly and mysterious recesses of life. 



MAN THE REFORMER. 



237 



The power which is at once spring and re^lator 
in all efforts of reforai is the conviction that there 
is an infinite worthiness in man, which will appear 
at the call of worth, and that all particular reforms 
are the removing of some impediment. Is it not 
the highest duty that man should be honored in us? 
I ought not to allow any man, because he has broa<l 
lands, to feel that he is rich in my presence. I 
ought to make him feel that I can do without his 
riches, that I cannot be bought, — neither })y vM\n- 
fort, neither by pride, — and though 1 Ijc utterly 
penniless, and receiving bread from him, that he is 
the poor man beside me. And if, at the same time, 
a woman or a child discovers a sentiment of piety, 
or a juster way of thinking than mine, I ought to 
confess it by my respect and obedience, though it 
go to alter my whole way of life. 

The Americans have many virtues, but they 
have not Faith and Hope. I know no two words 
whose meaning is more lost sight of. We use 
these words as if they were as obsohjte as Selah 
and Amen. And yet they have the broadest mean- 
ing, and the most cogent application to Boston in 
this year. The Americans have little faith. They 
rely on the power of a dollar ; they are deaf to a 
sentiment. They think you may talk the north 
wind down as easily as raise society ; and no class 
more faithless than the scholars or intellectual men. 



I i 



28vS MAN niK HEFOHMKR. 

Now if 1 talk ^^^th u sinooiv wise luim, luiil tnv 
fru'iul, Nvith a poot, with a ivusi-irntious youth 
who 154 still nuilov tho lUuuiniou oi his own wiKl 
thouii'hts, ami not yot haruosstvl in tho toain o( ^o- 
oioty tv> tlnig with us all in tl»t> nits of oustom, 1 
soo at oiUH» how paltry i^i^ all this ji-onoration of un- 
Miovovs, aiul what a houso of oaitls thoiv iustitu- 
tious aiv, ami I soo what one bravo man, what ouo 
gwat thouuht oxtH'utod miuht olYoot. I soo that 
tho ivasou i>f tho distrust of tho pvaotit.'al man in 
all theory, is his inahility to poivoivo tho nutans 
\vhotvbY wo work. Look, ho siivs, at tho toi>ls with 
Avhioh this worlil of yours is to bo built. As wo 
oaiH\ot Tuako a planot, with atuiosphoiv, rivei*s, and 
foivsts, by uu\^ius of tho best oarpoutoi"s' or ougi- 
lUHU's' tiH^ls, with t'homist's lalH^ratorv aud smith's 
foi'jiv to lHH>t, — SO luuthor oan wo ovor oiMistniot 
that hoavouly swioty you prato of out of fiH^lislx, 
siok, soltish mou aud womou, suoh as wo know 
thout to bo. Init tho bollovor not ouly beholds his 
hoavou to bo possible, but already to begin ti> ex- 
ist, — not by tho nuxu or materials tho statosu\au 
uses, but by men tnvustiguivd aud mised aluno 
theiuselves by the pinver of priuiviples. 1\> piiuvu- 
j>les soiuetluug" else is jx^ssiblo that trausoeuds all 
tho jxnver of exjH\lieuts, 

Kverv iri^ej^t aud eommaudiug uiomeut iu the an- 
nals of the world is the triiuuph of souie enthusiasm. 



MAN THE REFORMER. 239 

' i e victories of tlic A-rubs after Mulioniet, wlio, in a 
1' v' years, from a siriall and mean beginning, estab- 
wid a larger empire tlian that of Jtome, is an ex- 
j)l(i. They did they knew not wliat. The naked 
i>' rar, liorsed on an idea, was found an overmiitf;li 
lor a troop of Roinan cavahy. Tlie wonwiii f ought 
1;1 <j men, and conquered the Rorjian men. Tliey 
were miserably equip]>ed, mis(irably fed. Tliey were 
Ti rnjKirance troops. TJiere was neitlier brandy nor 
i i sh need(}d to feed them. They c<jnquered Asia, 
11 d Africa, and Spain, on barley. The Calipli 
(J.iar'B walking-stick struck more terror into thos<; 
wijp saw it than another maii's sword. His diet 
; barley Ijread; his sauce was salt; and of ten- 
Li. es by way of a}>stinence he ate his brea<l with- 
out salt. His drink was water. His pahu;e was 
built of mud ; and when he hift Medina to go to 
the conquest of Jeruwalem, he rode on a red camel, 
witli a wooden platter lianging at his sa^ldle, with a 
bottle of water and two sacks, one holding barley, 
and the other dried fruits. 

But there will dawn ere long on our politics, on 
our modes of living, a nobler morning than that Ara- 
bian faitli, in the sentinKmt of love. This is tlie 
one remedy for all ills, the panaxjea of nature. We 
must be lov(;rs, and at once the impossible becomes 
possible. Our age and history, for these tliousand 
years, lias not been the history of kindne.is, but 



240 MAN THE RFFOliMKR, 

of selfishness. Our distrust is veiy expensive. Tl o 
nionov wo s])imu1 for eourts and prisons is very ill 
laid out. Wo make, by distrust, the thief, an J 
l)ui'i;lar, and ini't>ndiarv, and by our court and ja I 
>vo keep him st>. An aoooptanoe of the sentinlep^ 
of love throughout Christoudoni for a season woul.^ 
brinsr the felon mid tJie outoast tt> our side in teaiv , 
with the devotion of his fai'ulties to our servior. 
See this wide soeioty of laboring" men and women. 
Wo alli>w ourselves to be served by them, we liv 
apart from thom, and meet them witlumt a salul. 
in tlie streets. AVe do not greet their talents, no 
rejoice in their good fortune, nor foster their hopef- 
nor in the assembly of the people vote for what i- 
dear to thom. Thus w^e enact the }>art of the self- 
ish noble and king from the foundation of tli^' 
world. See, this tree always bears one fruit. In 
every household, tlie peace of a pair is poisoned by 
the malice, slyness, indolence, and alienation of do- 
mestics. Let any two matrons meet, and observe 
how soon their conversation turns on tJie troubles 
from their " /ulp" as our phrase is. In every 
knot of laborers the rich man iloos not fool himself 
among his friends, — and at the polls he finds them 
arrayed in a mass in distinot opposition to him. 
AVe complain that the politics of masses of the 
people are controlled by designing men, and h>d in 
opposition to manifest justice and tJio conunon 



MAN THE liEl'OUMELL 241 

weal, and to their own interest. But the peoplti 
do not winh to be represented or ruled by the igno- 
rant and base. Th(iy only vote for these, because 
they were asked with the voice and semblance of 
kindness. They will not vote for them long. They 
inevitaldy prefer wit and proljity. To use an Egyp- 
tian metaphor, it is not their will for any long time 
" to raise the nails of wild beasts, and to depress 
the heads of the saxjred Inrds." Let our affection 
flow out to our fellows ; it would operate in a day 
the greatest of all revolutions. It is better to work 
on institutions by the sun tlian by the wind. The 
State miist consider the poor man, and all voices 
must speak for him. Every child that is bora 
must have a just chance for his Ijread. Let the 
amelioration in our laws of })rop<;i'ty proceed from 
the concession of the rich, n(jt from the grasping of 
the poor. Let us begin by halntual impai-ting. 
Let us understand tliat the equitalde rule is, tliat 
no one should take more tlian his sliare, let him 
be ever so rich. Let me feel that I am to be 
a lover. I am to see to it that the world is 
the better for me, and to find my reward in the 
act. Love would put a new fa<ie on this weaiy old 
world in which we dwell as pagans and enemies too 
long, and it would warm the heart t^j see how fast 
the vain diplomacy of statesmen, the impotence of 
armies, and navies, and lines of defence, would be 

VOL. I. 16 



242 MAN THE BEFORyjER. 

sniHTseiled by this unarnieil child. Love will creep 
where it cannot go, will accomplish that by imper- 
ceptible methods, — being its own lever, fulcrum, 
and power, — which force could never achieve. 
Have you not seen in the woods, in a late autumn 
morning, a poor fungus or mushrooni, — a plant 
without any solidity, nay, that seemed nothing but 
a soft mush or jelly, — by its constant, total, and 
inconceivably gentle pushing, manage to break its 
way up through the frosty ground, and actually to 
lift a hard crust on its head ? It is the symbol of 
the power of kindness. The virtue of this principle 
in human society in application to great interests is 
obsolete and forgotten. Once or twice in history 
it has been tried in illustrious instances, with sig- 
nal success. This great, overgrown, dead Chris- 
tendom of ours still keeps alive at least the name 
of a lover of mankind. But one day all men will be 
lovers ; and every calamity wall be dissolved in the 
universal sunshine. 

Will yon suffer me to add one trait more to this 
portrait of man the reformer ? The mediator be- 
tween the spiritual and the actual world should 
have a great prospective prudence. An Arabian 
poet describes his hero by saying, 

" Sunshine was he. 
In the winter day ; 
And in the midsummer 
Coolness and shade." 



MAN THE REFORMER. 243 

He who would help himself and others should not 
be a subject of irregular and interrupted impulses 
of virtue, but a continent, persisting, immovable 
person, — such as we have seen a few scattered up 
and down in time for the blessing of the world ; 
men who have in the gravity of their nature a qual- 
ity which answers to the fly-wheel in a mill, which 
distributes the motion equably over all the wheels 
and hinders it from falling unequally and suddenly 
in destructive shocks. It is better that joy should 
be spread over all the day in the form of strength, 
than that it should be concentrated into ecstasies, 
full of danger and followed by reactions. There is 
a sublime prudence which is the very highest that 
we know of man, which, believing in a vast future, 
— sure of more to come than is yet seen, — post- 
pones always the present hour to the whole life ; 
post]3ones talent to genius, and sjiecial results to 
character. As the merchant gladly takes money 
from his income to add to his capital, so is the great 
man very willing to lose particular powers and tal- 
ents, so that he gain in the elevation of his life. 
The opening of the spiritual senses disposes men 
ever to gi-eater sacrifices, to leave their signal tal- 
ents, their best means and skill of procuring a pres- 
ent success, their power and their fame, — to cast 
all things behind, in the insatiable thirst for divine 
communications. A purer fame, a greater power 



244 MAN Till': REF0R3JER. 

rewards the sacrifiee. It is the conversion of our 
harvest into seed. As the farmer easts into the 
groiuid the finest ears of his grain, the time will 
come when we too shall hold nothing hack, bnt 
shall eagerly convert more thixn we now possess 
into means and powers, when we shall be willing to 
sow the sun and the moon for seeds. 



LECTURE ON TTTE TIMES. 

BEAD AT TILE MASONIC TEMPLE, BOSTON, DECEMBER 2, 1841. 



LECTURE OX THE TIMES. 



TifE Timer, as we say — or the present aspects 
of our social state, the Laws, Divinity, Natural Sci- 
ence, Ag-iiculture, Art, Trade, Letters, liave their 
root in an invisible spiritual reality. To appear 
in these aspects, they must first exist, or have some 
necessary foundation. Beside all the small reasons 
we assign, there Ls a great reason for the existence 
of every extant fact ; a reason which lies grand and 
immovable, often unsus])ected, behind it in silence. 
The Times are the masquerade of the Eternities ; 
trivial to the dull, tokens of noble and majestic 
agents to the wise ; the receptaxde in which the 
Past leaves its history ; the quarry out of which 
the genius of to-day is building up the Future. 
The Times — the nations, manners, institutions, 
oi)inions, votes, are to be studied as omens, as sar- 
cred leaves, whereon a weighty sense is inscribed, 
if we have the wit and the love to search it out. 
Nature itself seems to propound to us tliis t<Ji>ic, 
and tn invite us to explore the meaning of the con- 
spicuous facts of the day. Everything that is poj>- 



248 LECTURE ON THE TIMES. 

vilar, it has beeu said, deserves the attention of the 
philosopher : and this for the obvious reason, that 
although it may not be of any worth in itself, yet 
it characterizes the people. 

Here is very good matter to be handled, if we 
are skilful; an abundance of important practical 
questions which it behooves us to understand. 
Let us examine the pretensions of the attacking 
and defending- parties. Here is this great fact of 
Conservatism, entrenched in its immense redoubts, 
with Hinmialeh for its front, and Atlas for its 
flank, and Andes for its rear, and the Atlantic and 
Pacific seas for its ditches and trenches ; which has 
planted its crosses, and crescents, and stars and 
stripes, and various signs and badges of possession, 
over every rood of the planet, and says, ' I will 
hold fast ; and to whom I will, will I give ; and 
whom I will, will I exclude and starve : ' so says 
Conservatism ; and all the children of men attack 
the colossus in their youth, and all, or all but a 
few, bow before it when they are old. A necessity 
not yet commanded, a negative imposed on the 
will of man by his condition, a deficiency in his 
force, is the foundation on which it rests. Let 
this side be fairly stated. Meantime, on the other 
part, arises Reform, and offers the sentiment of 
Love as an overmatch to this material might. I 
wish to consider well this affirmative side, which 



LECTURE ON THE TIMES. 249 

has a loftier port and reason than heretofore, whi(rh 
encroaches on the other every day, puts it out of 
countenance, out of reason, and out of temper, and 
leaves it nothing but silence and possession. 

The fact of aristocracy, with its two weapons of 
wealth and manners, is as commanding a feature of 
the nineteenth century and the American republic 
as of old Kome, or modern England. The reason 
and influence of wealth, the aspect of philosoi)hy 
and religion, and the tendencies which have ac- 
quired the name of Transcendentalism in Old and 
New England ; the aspect of poetry, as the expo- 
nent and interpretation of these things ; the fuller 
development and the freer play of Character as a 
social and political agent ; — these and other related 
topics will in turn come to be considered. 

But the subject of the Times is not an abstract 
question. We talk of the world, but we mean a 
few men and women. If you speak of the age, you 
mean your own platoon of people, as Dante and 
Milton painted in colossal their platoons, and called 
them Heaven and Hell. In our idea of progress, 
we do not go out of this personal picture. We do 
not think the sky will lie bluer, or honey sweeter, 
or our climate more temperate, but only that our 
relation to our fellows will be simpler and happier. 
What is the reason to be given for this extreme at- 
traction which persons have for us, but that they 



250 LECrUEE ON TIIF. TIMES. 

nro ilio Ai^c ? (hoy are the results of the l\ist ; 
they ate the heralds of the Futuri>. They iiulieate, 
— these witty, sutYerinji', blushing, intimidating' iig- 
ures of the only rai'o in which there art> individuals 
or ehanges, how far o\\ the Fate has gon(\ and what 
it ilrives at. As trees make sirenery, and eonsti- 
tute the hospitality of the landsea])e, so persons are 
the world to i)ersons, A ennning mystery by whieh 
the (Jreat Desert of thoughts and of planets takes 
this engaging form, to bring, as it would seem, its 
meanings nearer to the mind. Thoughts walk aiul 
speak, ajul look with eyes at me, and transjwrt mo 
into utnv and magnitieent seenes. These are tho 
pungent instruetors who thrill the heart of each of 
us, and make all other teaehing fornud and eold. 
How 1 folhnv them With aehing heart, with pining 
desire! 1 t'ount myself nothing before them. T 
would die for them with joy. They ean do what 
they will with nu>. How they lash us with those 
tongues! How they make the tears start, make us 
blush ami turn pale, anil lap us in Elysium to sooth- 
ing dreams and easth^s in the air ! By tones of 
triuniph, of dear love, by threats, by j^ride that 
freezes, these liave the skill to luake the world look 
bleak and inhospitabli>, or seem the nest of tender- 
iu»ss and joy. I do not wonder at the miraeles 
Avhieh poetry attributes io the nmsie of Orpheus, 
when 1 remember what 1 have experienced from 



LECTURE ON THE TIMES. 251 

tlic VMri(!(l notes <ji" tJic liu)iian voi<;<;. "^ ^K'y arc an 
incalculable energy which countervailH all other 
forc(;s in nature, because they are the (jhannel of 
Hupjirnatural powers. There is no interest or insti- 
tution so poor and withered, but if a new stron}^ 
man could be born into it, he would imnjcdiately 
r(ideeni and r(;plac<; it. A j)(;rKonal ascendency, — 
that is the only fact much woi-th (jonsidering. I re- 
mendjer, some years aj^o, somebody shocked a circle 
of friends of order here in Jioston, who supposed 
that our peoi>le were identified with their relij^ious 
denominations, by declaring that an eloquent man, 
— let him be of wliat sect soever, — would be or- 
dained at once in one of our metropolitan churches. 
To 1j(; sure he would ; and not only in ours but in 
any church, moscpie, or temple, on the planet ; but 
he must be eloquent, able to supplant our method 
and classification by the superior V^eauty of his own. 
lilvery fact we have was brought here by some per- 
son ; and there is none that will not change and 
pass away before a person whose nature is broader 
ihon the person wliif^li the fact in question repre- 
sents. And so I find the Age walking about in 
happy and hopeful natures, in strong eyes and pleas- 
ant thoughts, and think I read it nearer and truer 
so, than in the statutobook, or in the investments 
of capital, which rather celebrate with mournful 
music the obsequies of the last age. In the brain of a 



252 LECTUIiE ON THE TIMES. 

f;uiatio ; in the wild hope of a mountain l)oy, oallcd 
by city boys very ipiorant, beeanse they do not 
know what his hope has eertainly appiised him sliall 
be ; in the h)ve-»;lance of a j;iil; in the hair-splitting- 
eonseientionsness of some eeeentrie person who has 
found some new scruple to embarrass liimself and 
his neighbors withal is to be found that which shall 
constitute the times to come, more than in the now 
organized and accreilited oraides. For whatever is 
aflirmative and now advancing, contains it. I think 
that only is real wliich men love and rejoice in ; 
not what they tolerate, but what they choose ; what 
they end)race and avow, and not the things which 
chill, benumb, and terrify them. 

And so why not draw for these times a portrait 
gallery? Let us paint the painters. Whilst the 
Dnguerreotypist, with cainera-obscura and silver 
plate, begins now to traverse the land, let us set up 
our Caniera also, and let the sun paint the jieople. 
Let us paint the agitator, and the man of the c^ld 
school, and the member of Congress, and the col- 
lege-professor, the formidable editor, the priest anu 
reformer, the contemi)lative girl, and the fair as- 
pirant for fashion and opportunities, the wonum of 
the world who has tried and knows ; — let us ex- 
amine how well she knows. Could we indicate the 
indicators, indicate those who most accurately rep- 
resent every good and evil tendency of the general 



LECTURE ON THE TIMES. 2.>3 

mind, in the just order whieh they take on this ean- 
vas of Time, so that all witnesses should recog- 
nize a spiritual law as each well known form flitted 
for a moment across the wall, we should have a 
series of sketches which would report to the next 
ages the color and quality of ours. 

Certainly I think if this were done there would 
be much to admire as well as to condemn ; soids 
of as lofty a port as any in Greek or Roman fame 
might appear ; men of great heart, of strong hand, 
and of persuasive speech ; subtle thinkers, and men 
of wide sympathy, and an appreliension which looks 
over all history and everywhere recognizes its own. 
To be sure, there will be fragments and hints of 
men, more than enough : bloated promises, which 
end in notliing or little. And then truly great 
men, but with some defect in their composition 
which neutralizes their whole force. Here is a 
DamafK'us blade, such as you may search through 
nature in vain to parallel, laid up on the shelf in 
some village to rust and ruin. And how many 
seem not quite available for that idea which they 
represent ? Now and then comes a bolder spirit, I 
should rather say, a more sunendered soul, more 
informed and led by God, which is much in ad- 
vance of the rest, quite beyond their sj^npathy, but 
predicts what shall soon be the general fulness ; as 
when we stand by the seashore, wliilst the tide is 



254 LECTURE Oy THE TnfEi>. 

cowuwj; ill, ;i \v;ivo t'omos up tho bo;u'h far liii;hor 
than any I'luvgoing one, aiul roi'cilos : and for a 
loni;' whilo none conuvs np to that nuirk ; Imt aik'i' 
soino (inio (ho wholo soa is thoro and Ivvond it. 

Rut Nvo arc not j>onnittod to stand as spectators 
oi I ho pam^ant which the times exhibit : we aro 
parties also, and have a responsibility whieh is not 
to be declined. A litthMvhile this interval of wou- 
(h>r ami I'oniparison is permitted us. but to the eiul 
that we shall })la_v a manly part. As the solar s^'S- 
tem moves forwanl in the heavens, certain stairs 
open before us. and certain stars t'lose up behind us ; 
so is man's life. The reputations that were ij,reat 
and iuaccessible change and tarnish, llow great 
were once Lord Bacon's dimensions I he is now 
ivduced ahnost to the middle height : and many 
another star has turned out to be a planet or an as- 
teroid : only a few are the tixeil stars which havo 
no parallax, or none for us. The change and do- 
I'line of old reputations are the gracious marks of 
our own growth. Slowly, like light of uvorning, it 
steals on us, the new fact, that we who were pupils 
or aspirants are now society : do compose a portion 
of that head and heart wi> are wont to think worthy 
of all reverence and heed. ^^ e are the ivpix^sen- 
tatives of religion and intellect, and stand in the 
lii^ht of Ideas, wlu>se rays stivam tlirou<;h us to 
those youuger aiul more iu tlie dark. AVliat further 



LhUJl'IIIU'l ON I'llE riMEH. 255 

rolatloriH wc HiiHiiiiii, wli;ii ii(!W IojI^ch wo arc ont(!r- 
inj^, Ih mow miUiiovvn. 'lo-day i'h a kinj^' in <lisf;iiiHO. 
To-day ulwayH Jookw iiioaii to ilio ilioiij^litlcHH, in tho 
fac<! of :iii uniforrii <rx|)<!riciico iliat all ^oo<l and 
gr(3at and Iia|>|)y actionn aic; iiiado up |ti(!c,iH(!ly of 
thoHO hlanU to-day.H. L(;t ns not, h(; ko dcc.ciivod. 
L(!t iiH unniaHk tlic! kin;; aw Ikj paHWjH. Lot uh not 
inluihit lini(!H of wondorful iind variouH pronuHe 
witlioiib divinin;; ilioir tendency. Lot iih not hoo 
tlio foundations of n;itionH, and of a now ;uid hottor 
ordor of thin^H laid, with vovin;; <'yoH, and an at- 
tontion j)r<',oo(Mij)i<!d with triHoH. 

"i'ln; two onnii|)roHont parti<'-H of friHtory, tho 
party of th(! Past and th<; p;irty of f ho l''ntiir(^, di- 
vide Hooioty to-day 'j^v, of old. Iloro in tlio innurn(!r- 
al)lo nndtitiido of tiioso wlio ao(!<!j)t tlio stato and 
tlio ohiiich from the, last ^(jmjration, and Htand on 
no ar^ujuont hut j)OHH0HHion. I h<y havo roaHon 
also, and, as I think, hotter iciison th;in is ooin- 
TMonly Htatod. No liurko, no Mott(;rnioli liaH yot 
douo full juHtJoo to tin; Hide; of oonHorvatiHrn. I>ut 
thiH clasH, liow(!vor largo, rolying not f>n tlu; intol- 
leot l)ut on the instinct, ld(jndH itself with tlio Innto 
foro(!H of nature, Ih reHp«!(;tal)l(j only as nature; is ; hut 
tho individuals havo no attnwition for ns. Tt ia tho 
dissont<a-, tho thoorist, tho aspirant, wlio is (juittiji;; 
this ancient domain to omhark on HoaH of axlvon- 
iuro, who ongagos om- intci-ost. Omitting thou for 



250 luicrrtit^ ox thk rntKS, 

i\\o |m\*4tM\t all notioo oi i\w m,ui*m»;u'v oIhss, wo 
nhall liuil tl\;>t i\\o \\u'>\ou\c\\i \k\v[\ ilividrs Itsolf 
i>it»> two olussovs, (ho !U'(ors, juul tho stiultMits. 

riio uoto»^ o\vi\stit\itt^ tUut ii~»vat n\u\v of mavtv »•« 
^^lu^ at losHst u\ Amorioa, \>y thoiv o\>usoio\uv aiul 
\\lulautlu\>)\\, iHvupv (ho iii\>ut\il whith (.^ilvinism 
tHVuj»ioil in tho last a^x\ a»ul ^^>mpos^^ (ho visihU* 
ohmvh ol" tho «^\is(ing iivuoratiou. Tlu^ juvvsont 
aj;v will ho niavkisl hy itji harYo?<( v>l" p\\>itH'ts>< tor 
tho »vt\vvm ot vU>uu\«itio. oivil. Utoravv, iwiil oinvlosi- 
JUstioiU i«stit(itUM»s. Tho loa^Uis i>t' tho t'rusailos 
n^uuxst War, ^>0};'l^^ sslavorv, luttnupovauoo, lu>voru- 
mout Kastnl oit fvu^v. rvSj>i;x^s of travlo, Oourt aiul 
i\»stom hoiiso Oaths, avvvl t^o o» io (ho aiiitatot*s on 
ilio svstoiu of l'\h»oatuv« auvl tht* laws v>f ri\n>«M*tv, 
aiv tho riiiht suihvssim's i^f Ln(hor, Kuo\, Uohiii- 
so«, Kv^\, IVnu, Woslov, aiul WhittuvUl. Thov 
havo tho sjuuo virtuos a.\»ilvi<vs; tho s^viuo nohlo 
iuipulso, ami tho siuuo lnii\>tvv. Thoso nunomonts 
aiv iv(» all aiHHnmts uujnntjmt ; tJ\OY not oiUy ohiH'k 
tho sjHvial abustvs. but thov tniuoato tho v\»usoiotuv 
aiul tho JtvtolUvt i>f tho |HH>txlo. I Knv oaii suoh a 
qxuvstiou as tho Slav^'^ti'julo Iv aj^itattnl for fv>vtY 
Yx^H.i's hv iUl tlio (.'hvistiau uatiiviis, withmit thi\>w- 
»»\5i" 5iTt\at Hiiht o« othios \\Uo tho iivnonU luhui? 
Tho fuv\ with whioh tho slav^v-tnulor vlofoiuls ovorv 
hu'h txf his KKhhIy iUvk and his liowliui*' aiiotion- 
jilait\>vtu, is a trum^vt to alarui tho t\sv of niaukiinl, 



/.uri iJiU'. <)!i nil. iiMEH. 2r>7 

\Ai waJ«r \\\i', <JuJI, :\.ui\ ilinvt', a) J iH',uU'nhi i/t i^kh 
nuU'M '.uA i/> W^U'Ai U> iUc, }ti"^u!ii(',hi utA f.h/; v<;r<jj/?fc, 

Hni'nitt of U'.n iUifimttui citcJirw, an/l 'm twJil y ttt/culU'A 
at «;v<?i'y pubJi'; an/1 at <;v<fry pr'tvaUt taHtUi, drawing 
witfi it all f,fj/; cutUnia atU'wH of iiic \'U'A'/h, of i\u'. 
Wimxjiiij'ftti/^n, of tfii; ('Acuity of tli/^ utn-itafiutinrh 
aii'i til/; it'iulh, in a 'iiyuiuiMiu; UalttUi')^ t/f iht ca*- 
uiairy a/i/j c4>uiiA'M'AU'A', of i\tt; titin% Aitii-uumfury 
\iiu\ a 'J<->;p rij^fit an/J wroti'/, wUit-h j^ra/jiially 
I'Aiti'AmA U> M'^}ii out of t.fj/5 uMt'ui t'/mirovHi'ny. 
The \>o\\Ut;'4\ i\i\iffA'u>U'A Ui\U',U\u'ii^ th/; f iank^ ; tli/j 
Tariff; tf</; Jirnitii of th/j cxt'/^tit'tvi} \HfM/t',r', tiiw. r'i'^Ut 
of i\ui ('AnuiiAUit'jit tr; Ittiiinu't iUh r*',\>rtiM*'Jitniivi} ; 
th/; it(inimt'jit of t}i/j ItuVmuA ; tli/; I't^futuinty warn; 
til/5 (Utu'^nim of uniufui^ ; ar/j all im-z/unftt with 
idU'n'/A ('AfticAnahfUh ; aii/1 it i<* w/Jl if gov/;n<rrt/;fit 
an/1 our >4/x;iai '/r/l/;r /jan (■■,xiv\cM.U- i}nitnn*'Av(^ from 
tW^; n\('jui)'u'M and fJn/J iin'Aitmdvdn «till '/ovHrrtutcnt 
an/1 «/^;ial oriU'.r. Th/j aUuUiUt of luM/fry v/il\ liuitd' 
afU'.r <'/>nn>nUi tli/; MU'/nlixr valiw? //f oiir cwihtm 
iVm'Aim'ton //f qturniUmn i/t tli/; r/iin/l //f tli/j \)*'yuA* 

VV'hikt /rftrjh //f tli/;)j/; '^p\rH.iion)i ami aiU'An\fiii <4 
i\n'. \)*'/f\>\ii for i\ii', \*i*^.U',r hi n«aj>Tjifj/-^l 1/y tli/; nat- 
ural i',xn.'^'^('.raX'uni of it» a/lv/x^t^;^, until It cxchuUtn 
tlj/; tA}it',ty> from «ight, an/1 r<;f>/;b< iVmcrtvi^ itarwum 
by tlifc nnfHintt^A <A tlw; pl/^ tli/; ni/>v<;rft/;nt» ar/> 
in r/rftlity all {^artM of on/; «i/^v<r«i/;nt. Tfi/;r/; i>i a 



258 Lh:crrnr o\ rnr riMi-s. 

porfov't I'liMui. st>iMl. or siH< it not, — o( rofonns 
oiuoroiui;' fi\>\ii (ho surnntuilinn' ilnrUuoss, o;\oh 
ohovishiuji" st>n»o \k\yI o( {\\o jivnorul iiloju ami all 
i\mst bo soon in oi»lov io do justioo io any »n»o. 
Soo)» in tliis (hoir natural oiMuioitiou. I hoy an» sul>- 
linio. Tho oi>nsoioni*o of (ho Ajiv ilonionstratos it- 
t^oltiiKhis otYort io raiso (ho lito y-<( man In pn((inj;' 
it in harmony \vi(h his i<loa oi ihc Hoantiful auil 
(ho .lust. Tho histiny o( rot\>rm is always iilontU 
oal. it is tho oo(\»iiarison oi tho iiloa with (ho t'aot. 
C)ur \uotlos of livinii' a»v not au'ivoablo to ^nir imaii- 
inatiiMi. Wo suspoot thoy aiv unworthy. Wo ar- 
mvigu our ilaily o»n|^loy(uou(s. Thoy a|>poav to us 
\mli(. m»wvu-thy of (ho faouhios wo spouJ on (horn. 
In I'ouYorsjition with a wiso man. wo liuvl v^ursolvos 
apolos;i/.in>;" for our onuUinMuonts : wo spoak of 
thom with shauu\ N.atuiv, litoratuiv, soionoo, 
ohihlluHHl. ap^var (o us boautiful: but not our tnvn 
ilaily work. not (ho ripo fruit auvl oonsiiloivd laboi-s 
of man. This boauty whioh tho fanoy tinds in 
OYorythiuii- olso, otntainly aoonsos tho uiannor of 
li t'o wo loavl. Why should it bo hatoful ? Why 
shoulvl it oontrast thus with all natural boautv ? 
Why shoulvl it i\o( bo i>ootio. ami invito and raise 
tis .' Is thoiv a mvossity that tho woi'ks of man 
shonUl Iv so^^lid? IVrhaps not. — Out of this fair 
Idoa in tho mind sprinii^ tho otYort at tho IVrfoet. 
It is tho interior testimony to a fairtu* jKVi^ibllity of 



I.ECTdhl: ON rill': TIM EH. 2.0*^ 

lif(j ari'l iri;irin<rH which ji^ituU^M wicicty <;v<;r'y Hay 
with th<'. offVj- of Ho/rx; n(!W arnorKJniont. If w<; 
would jii;i,l<«; rnon? Htri(;t ifi'jriiry (;orj<;<;rning itH ori- 
gin, wc find ourH(;lv<;H raj>id]y a[)j»f'o;t<;hin;( tlnj in- 
n(;r hourMhirioH of lliouj^lif,, that t<;nn whcro HjH5<;ch 
)>«;f;oiri<!H HiJoiftr;, and Hc'lctWAi c.0UH<;h:JU'Ai. For iho 
ori^^in of ;ill reform in In tliat rnyHt/^riouH fountain 
of the moral H<;ntim<!iit in ni;in, which, amidnt tho 
natnral, <!vcr containn tlio H\i]><;ni',d\iin\ for men. 
'I'hat in now and or«;ativ<;. TJiat in alive, 'ihat 
alone, ean make a ifian r>ther than ho in. Here or 
nowh(!n; renidrjH unhounded energy, u/ihounded 
j)ow(jr. 

The new vou-j-m in tlie wiMer-neHH cryinj^ " Ko 
pent," have revived a hf;[)e, whieh \nu\ wejj-ni^li 
perinhed <>n\, of the world, tliat the thou^litH of the 
mind may yet, in Home dintant age, in Home hap[>y 
lio(n-, ho exeeijt<;d hy the handn. That in the ho[)e, 
of whi(;l» all rather hopoH are partH. For Hr>nie agen, 
thewc idean have heen f;r>nHign(5d t^> the poet and 
muHieal eompoHer, to the prayern and tli'; HerrnonH 
ofchiin;heH; but the thought that they ean ever 
liave any footing in real life, H*;emH long ninee t/> 
have, he«;n exploded by all judif;iouH pernonn. Mil- 
t^>n, in hin beHt tra^.-t, dcwjribeH a rekttir^n between 
religion and th(j daily ocenpationn, whieh in t/aie 
until thin time. 

"A wealthy man, addicted to hin pleaHure and 



260 LECTUnE ON THE TIMES. 

to his profits, llnils religion ti> bo a traffic so en- 
taiiiiloil, and of so many piiUllinu^ ai'counts, that 
of all mysteries he cannot skill to keep a stock go- 
ing- njion that trade. What should he do? Fain 
he ^Y0uld have the name to be religious ; fain ho 
would bear up with his iu>ighbors in that. ^Mlat 
does he therefore, but resolve to give over toiling, 
and to find himself out some factor, to whose care 
and credit he may commit the whole managing of 
his religious affairs ; some divine of note and estima- 
tion that must be. To him he adheres, resigns the 
whole warehouse of his religion, with all the locks 
and keys, into his custt)dy ; and indeed makes the 
very person of that man his religion ; esteems his 
associating with him a sufficient evidence and com- 
inendatory of his owii piety. So that a man may 
sav his religion is now no more within himself, but 
is become a dividual moveable, and goes and comes 
near him, according as that good man frequents 
the house, lie entertains him, gives him gifts, 
feasts him, lodges him ; his religion comes home at 
night, prays, is liberally supped, and sum})tuously 
laid to sleep ; rises, is saluted, and after the malm- 
sey, or some well spiced bruage, and better break- 
fasted than he whose morning appetite would have 
gladly fed on green figs between Bethany and Je- 
rusalem, his religion walks abroad at eight, and 
leaves his kind entertainer in the shop, trading all 
day without his relii^ion." 



LECTURE ON THE TIMES. 261 

This pictuHi wr>ukl serve for our times. Relig- 
ion was not invited to eat or drink or sleep with us, 
or to make or divide an estate, but was a holiday 
guest. Such omissions judge the church ; as the 
compiomise made with the slaveholder, not much 
noticed at first, every day appears more flagiant 
mischief to the American constitution. But now 
the purists are looking into all these matters. The 
more intelligent are growing uneasy on the suljject 
of Marriage. They wish to see the character re- 
presented also in that covenant. There shall be 
nothing bmtal in it, but it shall honor the man and 
the woman, as much as the most diffusive and uiu- 
versal action. Grimly the same spirit looks into 
the law of Property, and accuses men of driving a 
trade in the gi-eat boundless providence which had 
given the air, the water, and the land to men, to 
use and not to fence in and monopolize. It casts 
its eye on Trade, and Day Labor, and so it goes up 
and down, paving the ear-th with eyes, destroying 
privacy and making thorough-lights. Is all this for 
nothing ? Do you suppose that the reforms which 
are preparing will be as superficial as those we 
know ? 

By the books it reads and translates, judge what 
books it will presently print. A great deal of the 
jnofoundost thinking of antiquity, which had be- 
come as good as obsolete for us, is now re-appear- 



262 LKCTriiF oy rm: times. 

uxiX in oxtrai'ts aiul allusions, and in twontv yonva 
will o-ot all printvil anmv. iSoo how darini;' is tho 
ivadinji', tho s|HHnilutit>n, tho oxpoviniontini;' of tho 
tin\o. It" now sonio i^vnius shall ariso who ooulil 
nnito tJioso soattoroil niys ! Ami always siu'h a 
uoviius dtuvs oniboily tho iiloas of oaoh tinio. lloro 
is uroat vai'ioty and riohnoss of mystioisni, oaoh 
part oi whii'h now (>nly disi^nsts whilst it forms 
tJio solo thoni;ht of somo |U)oi' IVrfootioni.st or 
" Conior ont,' yot whon it shall bo takon up as tho 
giunitnro t>f somo profound and all-rooonoilins^' 
thinkor, will appoav tho rich and appro}>viato doeoi'- 
atiiMi i>f his vobos. 

Thoso roforn\s aro mir oontomporarios ; thoy aro 
oursolvos ; our own li^ht, and si«;ht, and oonsi'iouoo ; 
thoy only namo tho rolation which subsists botwoon 
US anil tho vioious institutions whioh thoy 120 to ivo- 
tify. riioy aro tho sim]>lost statomouts of man in 
thoso mattors : tho plain right anil wrong. I i-an- 
not I'hooso but allow and honor thorn. Tho impulse 
is good, and tho theory : tho praotioo is loss bi^anti- 
fvd. Tho Koformors atllrm tho inward lifo, but 
thov do ni>t trust it, but use outwanl and vulii'ju* 
moans. Thov do not roly on inooisoly that stronirth 
whioh wins mo to thoir oausi> : not on lovo, not on 
a [>rini'i[>lo, but i>n uumi, on uudtitudos, t>n oiroum- 
stanoos, on money, on party ; that is, on foar, on 
vvrath, and jn-ido. Tho lovo which liftod n»on to 



LECriJItE ON THE TIMES. 203 

th(! Hl^lit of tli(!K(! I)(!it(!r cikIh w.'ah t!i(! truo and b(!Ht 
(liHtiii(;iIon of iliin tiiMC, the dlHjioHition io inisi :i 
])n'iici|)l(; iiioi-r; ilian ;i iriut(;rial for(M5. I iliirik that 
tlx; HON I of If roiiii ; the eoiiviction that not WiriHiial- 
iHrri, not Hluviii-y, not war, not Inijirisonmcnt, not 
even j(ov(!i'nrn(!nt, an; needed, — hut in lieu of them 
all, r('li;u)ce on the; H<!ntini(!nt of ni;in, whieh will 
woi-k JMJKt (he more it in tniHte,d ; nor, relian(;e on 
nundier.s, hut, eontrariwiw;, diHtruHt of numhcrH and 
the leelin;^' that tlien are we Htronj^est when most 
private and alone. The youn^ Jiien who have h<;(;n 
vexinf^ Hociiety for these lant y(;arH with rej^enerative 
niethodn wjem to have nia<Je thiH miKtake ; thciy all 
exa^^ei'atfid hoiik; HjKMual meanH, and all failed to 
8<!e that tin; Reform <jf Refoiins muHt h(; aettom- 
j)liHhed without mcjanH. 

The J{<;fonnH have their liij^li orif^In in an ideal 
justice, hut they do not retain the purity of an idea. 
They ar(} quiekly or}^ani/.<;d in Borne low, ina<le(juat(; 
form, and j)reHent no more poetic; image to tin; 
mind than the (;vll tradition whi(;l» th<;y r(;prohated. 
They mix the lire of the moral Hentim<;nt with per- 
8onal and party heatH, with m<;aHur<;leHH exagf^era- 
tions, and the hlindn(;HH tluit j>referH Home darlin;^- 
measure to juHtl(!e and truth. '^I'Iiomc; who an; \\v\^- 
'u\\r with most ardor what are called the great(;Ht 
benefitH of matdtind, are narrow, H<;lf-[)leaHing, con- 
ceited men, and affect uh as the insane do. They 



^4 iKcrt'HK oy thk riMhs, 

bito us, ju\vl wvMUU u\;»vl also. I think tl\o \v\>vU v»f 
tho \vt\>n\»or as u\t\tHVi\t ;\s otUoi\vv>vk that is th>no 
»u\»m\vl him; but whot* I havo s»vn it »u>ar. I vK» 
not liko it K^ttot. It is \K»no in tl\o sann^ wav. it 
Js vUmio |>»>>fanol\. nv>t pionslv ; l»v »na»>ai;\vn\tMit. l\v 
t^U'tios aiul olanu>r. It is a hnAA \\\ tho oar. 1 
oatinot t\vl atw pK^asniv in saovitloos whioh displ;»y 
tv» »\>o snoh iKUtialitv t»f oharaotor. Wo ilo »\ot. 
>vav\t aotions, hnt n»on ; n»>t a oh«Mnioal il>\>p of wa- 
tor, hnt vain : tho spirit that shtnls anil showors a*^ 
t ions, tHMu\t loss, onilloss aotions. \\>n ha\<> o»\ sv>n\i> 
invasion plavod ;» Ih>KI jKU't. ^ on ha\o sot \vmr 
his*vvt anvl fa\v a^^ainst sivioty whon umi thv>ns;ht it 
>v»\M>^V,, 5»'»*l tvtnrnovl it t"i\n\n tor t"i\n\\u IXv'ol- 
lotit : now oa»v yv>n atYonl to l\>ri;\>t it, »\H"kvM\inii" all 
YO»»r notiiM\ »io »\un-\^ than tho i>assin^ii" ot" \vMir hauvl 
tlnvnjih tho air. or a littlo Invath of Nonr month? 
Tho wkmKI U\i\-\\s no traok in spaoo, ami tho givjit- 
t^t aotioii i>f n\at\ no inark in tho \ast iJoa. To 
tho NvMvth ilitViilont ot his ability ainl tnll of ootn- 
p\n\otio»» at his nnpu>tital>lo oxistomv, tho tonti»ta- 
tion is al\v;>ys v;»vat to lond himsolf ti» i>nl>lio tmn»»- 
inoutH, ai\vl as i>no of a {vu'ty aiHt>nti<lish what ho 
oannot hoiu^ to otYoot aUnto. Trnt ho nmst jvsist 
tho iloiiTailatio»\ v>f a mati to a tnoasnw. I tnnst 
jivt with truth, thvui^h I slu>ttUl ttovor ihmuo to aot, 
as vou oall it, with otYoot. I \nnst v»\msoi\t t\> inav*- 
tion. A ^utiouoo whioh is graiul; a bruvo aiul oolil 



hEirrtiiii.: <,n '///a; i imi:h. 2^5.0 

\n; <\'nn', lit ;t. i\i'A',\> u\i\H',r ]t'Hfi^ \ tn'/ttint'jii ij, >/,\'t 
tii/l<5 ao'J tn:u'X'i<)ii v/U'i'}i iinH'A'A'An oni of ',m uowilJ 
Untjutnyi Vt violuiA', t',hitrwiA',i'<f U ilm i'Atuiiny wUh'h 
uiiiUt'4 i.\n', g<;m. Wl(il;-,t i,Ut',rt',fin't', I tU'Mtm f/; t',x^ 
ini'Hn ihi', it',niK'H an'J joy I fcA^ in4oi'ti iU\n m\)\\tfii', 
(unint'A'X'toti of tcfonnn itow nt iUtur infa»i/;y iuomt'l 
M>i, I \iiyi', i\n; niot'ti cm'tH'Mly th<? initurnoufii t\ui'u^ 
of 'Ai;\f ic.l'iiuii'A.. I citttnot i'lml \:tii'/nii//H of i'.niVt' 
ffUfui *',tU',iyy Up cAftivfy my m:itm of lh<; HWJ'tuliuf'^M 
of in'iviiU; ittU'i^rhy. A)) m/^D, aJJ ilihi'/n, ihf, Ma</?, 
ihn cliui^'Jj, yi;H. tli<; f$h.tii\n of U«; ln'Mh, ar<; pJi;tJ»- 
Umhih iiini iiiii'I'mI \h-'miU'. i\n', Hutudunry of iUc Ik^uH. 
With )v> iiiw.U ',i.wt',^ Willi wt liuu'Si UfAV^ U'i it l/<; r'<v 

TIk; i^ihid uiii'yu-iiy of iiihu^ »jna};l<? f/> ju'Jjj'j of 
a/iy \H''iu<'4\>U: until it;-, Jij.^lit falj;< on a f;v^i, ar<; n'/t 
uwiiic of i\tt', t'Vil that JH aroun'I t)i<?»n nntil tfi/?y 
w/? it in fAittiH j^i'ifHA fonti, ;w in a <!Jii«;< of 'iiiU'Au\>*',r- 
iiU', iiit'Ji^ Of alavchoUit^rn^ or AtMinm^ or fr an/Juhmt 
\>t',i%<iuA. 'VSu'U iSit'.y ar<j j^r<;atly iiiovcA ; nw\ hih^' 
ti'ifyht'/ tfx; injporianr^; of t}i;iit wronj^, th<;y fanny 
that if that ahiiwj w«5r<j riAvt;y,At-A\ all wouj'l j^o w<'jj, 
an'l th';y fill th<5 land with cJanior f>; o/fric/^, 'ti. 
\\iu<'A; \,\u; tu'im\ou'.iry, mul oth<;r icVi'^ionA ciJoriM. 
if <;v<;ry inland an'l <jv<5i'y ho(r-*<; h^i/l a lVi\>U'-, if 
<jv<;i'y <;hihJ wax \iton'/Ui iiiUt the, Sun'Jay Sch'^/l, 
v/ouM th<5 woun'ln of th<; worl/J fi'rJil, an I rnan Ixj 
Mpn^;ht ? 



266 LECTURE ON TUE I'lMES. 

But the uuui of ideas, aceountiui;' the eiu'um- 
stanee nothing;", judges of the eouunouwealtli fvoui 
the state of liis owu niiiul. • It",' lie says, • 1 am 
selfish, then is there slavery, ov the etfiu't tt> estab- 
lish it, Nvherever I go. But it' T :uu just, then is 
there no slavery, let the laws siiy ^^■hat they will. 
For it" 1 treat all uiou as gods, how to uie eau there 
be any sueh thing as a slave 'i ' But how frivolous 
is your war airaiust eireuuistanees. This denoune- 
ing philunthri>pist is himself a slaveholder in every 
word and look. Does he free me "? Does he eheer 
me'.'' He is the state of Georgia, or Alabauui, with 
their sanguinary slave-laws, walking here ou our 
northeastern shores. We are all thankful he has 
no more politieal }x>wer, as we are fond of liberty 
ourselves. 1 am afraid oiu* virtue is a little geo- 
graphieal. I am not mortitied by our viee ; that is 
obduraey ; it eolors and palters, it eurses and 
swears, and I can see to the eiul of it ; but 1 own 
our virtue makes me ashamed ; so sour and narrow, 
so thin and bliiul, virtue so viee-like. Then again, 
how trivial seem the contests of the abolitionist, 
whilst he aims mei*ely at the eiivumstanco of the 
slave. Give the slave the least elevation of relig- 
ions sentiment, and he is no slave ; you are the 
slave ; he not only in his humility feels his superior- 
ity, feels that much deploivd condition of his to be 
a fadini2' trifle, but he makes you feel it too. He is 



LECTURE ON THE TIMES. 267 

the master. The exaggeration which our young 
people make of his wrongs, characterizes them- 
selves. Wliat are no trifles to them, they naturally 
think are no trifles to Pompey. 

We say then that the reforming movement is 
sacred in its origin ; in its management and details, 
timid and profane. These benefactors hope to 
raise man by improving his circuiastances : by com- 
bination of that which is dead they hope to make 
something alive. In vain. By new infusions alone 
of the spirit by which he is made and directed, can 
he be re-made and reinforced. Tlie sad Pestalozzi, 
who shared with all ardent spirits the hope of E)u- 
rope on the outbreak of the French Revolution, af- 
ter witnessing its sequel, recorded his conviction 
that " the amelioration of outward circumstances 
will be the effect but can never be the means of 
mental and moral improvement." Quitting now 
the class of actors, let us turn to see how it stands 
with the other class of which we spoke, namely, the 
students. 

A new disease has fallen on the life of man. 
Every Age, like every human body, has its own 
distemper. Other times liave had war, or famine, 
or a barbarism, domestic or bordering, as their an- 
tagonism. Our forefathers walked in the world 
and went to their gTaves tormented with the fear 
of Sin and the terror of the Day of Judgment. 



•>»JC 



Thoso tonvrs h;ivo lost (hoir Kmv'o. :uul our (oi^ 
luont is luboliot". l\xo \ \wc\tiuni\ as to \\h;>( wo 
Oliiiht toilo; l\w distrust of tho v;iUio ot" what wo 
tlo. juvvl tho ilistrust that \\w Nooossity t^whiv<h w»> 
all ut last holiovo iu^ is taiv an»l luMu^lu'iMit. Chir 
Koliiiiou assmuos {\\c uopitivo t'onu ot" rojot'tiou. 
Out i>t" lovo i>t" tho truo. wo ropuJiato tlu^ talso : 
auil tho Kolii^iou is an aln^ishiuLi" I'l'itioism. A 
gnvat }Vi'{>loxit\ h;uiii"s liko a iloiul on i\\c brow oi 
all oiiltivatovl jHM^sons, a oortaiu iiuhooility in tho 
Ivst spirits, whii'h ilistiuii'uishos tlu^ jnMiinl. \N\< 
tlo lun t'uul tho saiuo trait in tho Arabian, in tho 
llolnvw. in (irook, Konian, Nornian. I'.nuli^h p<>ri- 
ihIs ; no, but in othor ini^n a natural tirnmoss. 
Tho uioji iliil not soo boNouil [\w wood oi tho 
hour. Thov planti\l thoir (oot stnuisi". auil ihuibtoil 
nothing'. \\ tuistrust ovorv stop wt> taUo. ^^ (^ 
ixwd it tho worst thin^ alnnit tinio that wo Kmnv 
not what to di> with it. ^^ t' aro so sh:iriKsii;h(oil 
that wo oan uoithor work uiu- think, uoithor roaJ 
Plato nor not roail him. 

Thou thoro is what is oalhnl a too intolloi-tnal 
toiulouoy. Can thoiv bo t(H> uiui'h intolloot ".' Wo 
havo novor mot with any sui'h oxooss. Hut tho 
oritioism whioh is lovolloil at tho laws and mau- 
nors, omls in thought, without t>ausin>i' a now 
luothod o( lit'o. Tho iivuius of tho ilay iKh>s not 
iuoliuo to a ilood, but to a bohoUlin-;-. It is not 



LKfrriJiU'i OS Tin: timkh. 'im 

\\\;\.\. \u<\\ 'lo not vviMfi Ui a/rf; t}i<;y pirw; t/> \i(t am- 
ployr-^J, hijf, ;ir<} ]nird\y7A'A\ by tfu? ntU'Mrtniuty wtiiit- 
fh/;y h1iouJ<I <]<>. '1 })<; \uiuU't\\yAJi',y of th<; work t/> 
f.fuj i'iU'.tili'n-.H m th<; painful \n:r('At\)iutu whi/;h [if'M\m 
\.\\<;m Hfjlj. 'riiJH }iHfj|X5n« t/i tJi<; b<;Ht. Th/jii, tal- 
<:ntH bi'inj^ fJu'j'r ijHu;tl l/;fnj>lationH, an<J tfii; <'Hir(mt 
lif^;iatijr<} and po<;try vvitfi ifctvcrna iw/fjiu'dy tlrnw 
MM away from lif<; t/> nrjitijrjf; a/i'J rm^Jitation. 'i filn 
foui'i v/<:l) h'-. horn'-, if it w<;r<; gT<;at and involun- 
tary ; if t}j<; ni<;n w(;r<; raviHh<',d \ty tln-'tr thouj^fit, 
and fiurri<;d int/> a-^i'itic hxU'iivn'^iiiU'Ain. ii<HU(dy 
coiil/J t)i<;n timuH'^o, U> r(i]f/d.HH tUh'iv hfiould<;r fro;/i 
itH wlict-A anrj ^rant th';rn for a tini<f thin privi- 
!<•;'<; of HafjbatI). liijt t}»<iy an? not iv>. Tliinkinj^, 
wliifdi waH a rn'/j'-, in \h-jahuh an ar-t. ']})<; tliink<;r 
j^ivcH rn<; r<'-HuItH, and ticvfj- invit^jH um i'> \i<: pr<;»- 
<;nt witJi fiirn at Win invoi;ation of truth, and to en- 
joy witli }iitn itH \)r(X'A'A'A\\u'^ mUt hin mind. 

So iitt]<; 'At^Aou anjidnt HUfdi auda/;ioij« and ytit 
HiucA'.v*'. [nofrjHHion, that wn h<;g-in to doiiht if tijat 
;.a'<;at rovohitiofj in th/; ar-t of war, whir;h han unuUi 
it a ^iiiiKt of ixmtH iimtAtiui of a j^atiic. of \)HiihiH, han 
not <>\HiViiU'Ai on Ii<;forrn : wh<;t}i<ir thin U; not aWi 
a war of pontM, a paj><;r bJockiuJ*;, in which <;af;h 
[jai-ty ]h XAf dlH}>lay th<', litrnoHt rcHourwjH of \m 
Hjiirit and hcJicf, au'l no cAiuWict <><'Amr, but the 
world hIiuII t;tk<; that oahxi-tA'. which the dcrnonrttra^ 
tir^n of the tnith hhall indicate;. 



270 LECTURE ON THE TIMES. 

But we must pay for being too intellectual, as 
they call it. People are not as light-hearted for it. 
I think men never loved life less. I question if 
care and doubt ever wrote their names so legibly 
on the faces of any population. This Ennui, for 
which we Saxons had no name, this word of France 
has got a terrific significance. It shortens life, 
and bereaves the day of its light. Old age begins 
in the nursery, and before the young American is 
put into jacket and trowsers, he says, ' I want 
sometliing which I never saw before ; ' and ' I 
wish I was not I.' I have seen the same gloom on 
the brow even of those adventurers from the intel- 
lectual class who had dived deepest and with most 
success into active life. I have seen the authentic 
sign of anxiety and perplexity on the greatest 
forehead of the State. The canker worms have 
crawled to the topmost bough of the wild elm, and 
swing dowai from that. Is there less oxygen in 
the atmosphere? What has checked in this age 
the animal spirits which gave to our forefathers 
their bounding pulse ? 

But have a little patience \\dth this melancholy 
himior. Their unbelief arises out of a greater 
Belief ; their inaction out of a scorn of inadequate 
action. By the side of these men, the hot agita- 
tors have a certain cheap and ridicvdous air ; they 
even look smaller than the others. Of the two, I 



LECTURE ON THE TIMES. 271 

own I like the speculators best. They have some 
piety which looks with faith to a fair Future, un- 
profaned by rash and unequal attempts to realize 
it. And truly we shall find much to console us, 
when we consider the cause of their uneasiness. It 
is the love of greatness, it is the need of harmony, 
the contrast of the dwarfish Actual with the exor- 
bitant Idea. No man can compare the ideas and 
aspirations of the innovators of the present day 
with those of former periods, without feeling how 
great and high this criticism is. The revolutions 
that impend over society are not now from ambi- 
tion and rapacity, from impatience of one or an- 
other form of government, but from new modes of 
thinking, which shall recorapose society after a 
new order, which shall animate labor by love and 
science, which shall destroy the value of many kinds 
of property and replace all property within the 
dominion of reason and equity. There was never 
so great a thought laboring in the breasts of men 
as now. It almost seems as if what was aforetime 
spoken fabidously and hieroglyj^hically, was now 
spoken plainly, the doctrine, namely, of the indwell- 
ing of the Creator in man. The spiritualist wishes 
this only, that the spiritual principle should be suf- 
fered to demonstrate itself to the end, in all possi- 
ble applications to the state of man, Avithout the 
admission of anything unspiritual, that is, anything 



272 LECTURE ON THE TIMES. 

positive, dogmatic, or personal. The excellence of 
this class consists in this, that they have believed ; 
that, affirming- the need of new and higher modes 
of living and action, they have abstained from the 
recommendation of low methods. Their fault is 
that they have stopped at the intellectual percep- 
tion ; that their will is not yet inspired from the 
Fountain of Love. But whose fault is this? and 
what a fault, and to what inquiry does it lead ! 
We have come to that which is the spring of all 
power, of beauty and vii-tue, of art and poetry ; 
and who shall tell us according to what law its in- 
spirations and its informations are given or with- 
holden ? 

I do not wdsh to be gnilty of the narrowness and 
pedantry of inferring the tendency and genius of 
the Age from a few and insufficient facts or per- 
sons. Every age has a thousand sides and signs 
and tendencies, and it is only when surveyed from 
inferior points of view that great varieties of char- 
acter appear. Our time too is full of activity and 
performance. Is there not something comprehen- 
sive in the grasp of a society which to great mechan- 
ical invention and the best institutions of property 
adds the most daring theories ; which explores the 
subtlest and most universal problems ? At the 
manifest risk of repeating what every other Age 
has thought of itself, we might say we think the 



LECTURE ON THE TIMES. 273 

Genius of this Age more pliilosophical than any 
other has been, righter in its aims, truer, with less 
fear, less fable, less mixture of any sort. 

But turn it how we will, as we ponder this mean- 
ing of the times, every new thought drives us to 
the deep fact that the Time is the child of the Eter- 
nity. The main interest which any aspects of the 
Times can have for us, is the great spirit which 
gazes through them, the light which they can shed 
on the wonderful questions, What we are? and 
Whither we tend? We do not wish to be deceived. 
Here we drift, like white sail across the wild ocean, 
now bright on the wave, now darlding in the trough 
of the sea ; — but from what port did we sail ? 
Who knows ? Or to what port are we bound ? 
Who knows ? There is no one to tell us but such 
poor weather-tossed mariners as ourselves, whom 
we speak as we pass, or who have hoisted some sig- 
nal, or floated to us some letter in a bottle from far. 
But what know they more than we? They also 
found themselves on this wondrous sea. No ; from 
the older sailors, nothing. Over all their speaking- 
trumpets, the gray sea and the loud winds answer. 
Not in us ; not in Time. Where then but in Our- 
selves, where but in that Thought through which we 
communicate with absolute nature, and are made 
aware that whilst we shed the dust of which we are 
built, grain by grain, till it is all gone, the law 

VOL, I. 18 



274 Lj:cTi'RK ox nil-: times. 

which c'h>thes lis with humanity remains anew ? 
where but in the intuitions whieh are vouehsafed 
lis from within, shall we learn the Truth ? Faith- 
less, faithless, we faney that with the tlust we de- 
part and are not, and do not know that the law and 
the i>ereeption of the law are at last one ; that only 
as nuieh as the law enters us, becomes us, we are 
liviui^- men, — immortal with tlie immortality of 
this hnv. Underneath all these appearances lies 
that wliich is, tlmt whieh lives, that which causes. 
This ever renewing- generation of appearances rests 
on a reality, and a reality that is ixlive. 

To a true scholar tlie attraction of the aspects of 
nature, the departments of life, and the passages of 
his exiierience, is simply the information they yield 
him of this supreme nature which hirks within all. 
That reality, that causing" force is moral. The 
]Moral Sentiment is but its other name. It makes 
by its presence or absence right and ^^^•ong•, beauty 
and ugliness, genius or depravation. As the gran- 
ite comes to the surface and towers into the hisihest 
mountains, and, if we dig do\\'u, we find it below the 
superlicial strata, so in all the details of our domes- 
tic or civil life is hidden the elemental reality, whieh 
ever and anon comes to the surface, and forms the 
grand men, who aiv the leaders and examples, 
rather than the companions of the race. The gran- 
ite is curiouslv concealed under a thousand forma- 



LECTURE ON THE TIMES. 275 

tions and surfaces, under fertile soils, and ^S,sses, 
and flowers, under well-manured, arable fields, and 
large towns and cities, but it makes the foundation 
of these, and is always indicating its presence by- 
slight but sure signs. So is it with the Life of our 
life ; so close does that also hide. I read it in glad 
and in weeping eyes ; I read it in the pride and in 
the humility of peojde ; it is recognized in every 
bargain and in every complaisance, in every criti- 
cism, and in all praise ; it is voted for at elections ; 
it wins the cause with juries ; it rides the stormy 
eloquence of the senate, sole victor; histories are 
written of it, holidays decreed to it ; statues, tornbs, 
churches, built to its honor ; yet men seem to fear 
and to shim it when it comes barely to view in our 
immediate neighborhood. 

For that reality let us stand ; that let us serve, 
and for that speak. Only as far as tltat shines 
through them are these times or any times worth 
consideration. I wish to speak of the politics, ed- 
ucation, business, and religion around us without 
ceremony or false deference. You will absolve me 
from the charge of flippancy, or malignity, or the 
desire to say smart things at the expense of whom- 
soever, when you see that reality is all we prize, 
and that we are bound on our entrance into nature 
to speak for that. Let it not be recorded in our 
own memories that in this moment of the Eternity, 



27G LECTURE ON THE THfES. 

when Nve who were iituuod by our iiniuos llittocl 
across tlie light, we were afraid of any fact, or dis- 
graced the fair Day by a pusilhiniinoiis preference 
of our bread to our freedom. "What is the schohir, 
what is the man /o;', but for hos}>itality to every 
new thought of his time? Have you k'isure, j^ower, 
property, friends ? You shall be the asylum and 
patron of every new thought, every unproven opin- 
ion, every untried project which pi'oeeeds out of 
good will and honest seeking. All the newspapers, 
all the tongues of to-day will of course at first de- 
fame what is noble ; but you who hold not of to-day, 
not of the times, but of the Everlasting, are to stand 
for it: and the highest compliment man ever re- 
ceives from heaven is the sending to him its dis- 
guised and discredited angels. 



THE CONSERVATIVE. 

A LECTURE DELIVEUKU AT TlfE MASONIC TEMPLE, BOSTON, 
DECEMUEI'v 9, 1841 



I 



THE CONSERVATIVE. 



TriE two parties which divide the Htate, the party 
of Conservatism and that of Innovation, are very 
old, and have disputed the possession of the worhl 
ever since it was made. This ({uarrel is the sub- 
ject of civil history. The conservative pai-ty estal>- 
lished the reverend hierarchies and monarchies of 
the most ancient woild. Tlie Lattle of patri(;ian 
and pleheian, of parent state and colony, of old us- 
age and accommodation to new facts, of th(; rich 
and the poor, reappears in all countries and times. 
The war rages not only in })attle-fields. in national 
councils and ecclesiastical synods, Ijut agitates 
every man's bosom with opposing advantages every 
hour. On rolls the old world meantime, and now 
one, now the other gets the day, and still the fight 
renews itself as if for the first time, under new 
names and hot personalities. 

Su(^h an irreconcilable antagonism of course 
must have a correspondent depth of seat in the hu- 
man constitution. It is the opi)osition of Past and 
Future, of Memory and Hope, of the Understand- 



2v^0 111 t: ( 'o.VNf; A' i '. i // 1 >:. 

inu' ami tlio lunison. Tt is ihc [uimal antaiivniisiu, 
tho a}>pt\inuu't.> in tritlo?; ot" tho twi) poles of mi- 
tiitv. 

Thovo is a tra^•MUMlt ot old tablo wlui'h seiMus 
somohow to liavo Ihhmi tlroppoil i'rom tho I'limuit 
mvthologios, which may ch>sevvo attoiition, as it np- 
poavs to vohito to this suhjtH't. 

Saturn iiivw woai'v ot" sittins:' aU>m>, or Nvitli uouo 
Init tho siToat l^vaiwis ov lloaviMi hohohliuti" him, 
ami ho oivatoil an i>ystor. Phon ho wcnihl ai't; 
ftiialn, but ho uuulo iiothiuii' movo, but wont on 
oroating- tho nu'o o( oystovs. Thou Irauus oriotl, 
* A now work, (.) Saturn ! tho ohl is not gooil 
Uiitiin.' 

Saturn ropliod, ' 1 l\>ar. Thoro is not only tho 
altorurttivo ot" makiui;- ami not makiuii', but also of 
iiuuiakin^'. Soost thou tho li'voat soa, how it ebbs 
ami tlows? so is it with mo; ujy powor obbs; ami if 
1 put forth my hands, 1 shall not ilo. but undo. 
Thoroforo I do what I havo douo ; 1 hoUl what I 
liavo iiot ; and so 1 rosist Niirht and Chaos.' 

'O Saturn,' ropliod Uranus, 'thou oanst not hold 
thine own but bv makiui;' more. riiv ovstors are 
bavnaoles ami ooi'klos, and with the next flowing of 
the tide they will bo pebbles and sea-foaiu.' 

'I see,' rejoins Saturn, 'thou art in league with 
Night, thou art beeonie an evil oyo : tlu>u spakest 
fi-oni love ; now tliy words smite me with hatred. 



77//'; (JONSFJiVATIVK. 281 

T appeal to P^ate, must there not he rest?' — 'I 
appfial to Fat(i also,' Haid UranuH, ' muHt there not 
he motion?' — I5ut Saturn was sihrnt, and went 
on making oysters for a thousand years. 

After that, the word of Uranus came into liis 
mind like a ray of the sun, and he made Jupiter ; 
an«l then he feared again ; and nature froze, the 
things that were nuule went }>ackward, and to save 
tlie world, Jujiiter shiw his father Saturn. 

This may stand for tluj earliest acjeount of a con- 
versation on polities hetween a Conservative and a 
Kaxlieal which lias conui down to us. It is ever 
thfis. It is the count<;i-a<;tion of the centripetal 
and th<! centiifugal forces. Innovation is the sa- 
lient energy ; Conservatism the pause on the last 
movem(;nt. 'That which is was made hy God,' 
saith Conservatism. ' He is leaving that, he is en- 
tering this other,' rejoins Innovation. 

There is always a certain meanness in the argu- 
ment of conservatism, joined with a eeilain superi- 
oiity In its fact. It affirms because it holds. Its 
fingers clutch the fact, and it will not open its eyes 
to see a better fact. TIk; castle which conservatism 
is set to defend is the a(;tual state of things, good 
and ba<l. The project of innovation is the Ijest 
])ossi]de state of things. Of course conservatism 
always has the worst of the argument, is always 
a]>ologizing, plea/ling a necessity, ph;ading tliat to 



282 Tiir coysmvAnvh:, 

ol»:uii;t* woulJ W io ilotoviorato : it must sjuldlo it- 
!»olt" with tho nu>imtait»oiis lojul of tho violomv niul 
viiV oi siH'iotv, uuist iKmiv tho VH>sHibilitY of iiXHuU 
ilouY iiloas, ami suspoot and stouo i\\o juHvphot ; 
whibt inmnatioii is ahvavs in tho rii;ht, triinnph- 
aut, attaokinii', ami suiv oi tinal smHH^ss. (.\>nstM^ 
\ntis»u stnmls imi man's oont\»sso<l lintitations, ii>- 
iovwx o\\ his imlispntahl<» intinitmlo; iHuisovvatisni 
on oiivnmstamH\ liboialisni t>n powtM' : ono s»xh>s to 
inako an ailn>it lutMuhtM- of tho svH'ial fraint\ tho 
othov {o postpono all things to tho inan hiinsolf ; 
cHMisorvatisiu is ilohonair and so<'ial, ivforn* is iu- 
dividnal ami iniporions. Wo art* ivl\>i'jnors in 
spvinji* and suntnuM*. in antnnin and Nvintor wo 
stand hv tlu> old ; n»t\>vniors in tho morning, oon- 
sorvovs at night. Uoform is atlirmativo, oonsorvsi- 
tism noii^jitivo : oonsovvatism lixu^s for I'omfort, it>- 
form for trntli. (^onsorvatism is »n(>iv oandiil to 
Ivhold anothor's worth: voform moro tlispi^stnl {o 
maintain and inoivaso its ^nvn. (.'onsorvatisni 
makos no pootrv, bivathos no pravor, has no inviMi- 
tion ; it is all n»omi>rv. Koforni has no gratitndo, 
m> prndonoo, no hnshandrv. It inakos a givat dif- 
foronoo to vouv tiu'nrt* aiid to vmir thtniuht whotluM- 
vonr foot is advanoing or rvH'Oiling. dnisorvatism 
novor puts tho foot forwaixl : in tho lunir wlu^n it 
dtHvs thiit, it is not ostahlishmont, hut ivfiu-m. C'on- 
St>rvatisu\ totids io univtn-siil soomiuii' ami tivaohorv. 



////, ''(fNHKItVATlVF.. 283 

])i']'u:\oH i»i ;i, »i(tj.';al,iv« fut<i ; hclicvcH that mkim'h 
U;inj)(;j' ^ovrtruH tlic/n ; fJjat for kk; It avails not, l.o 
IjuhI, i/i j)j'in<;i[J(!H, tli<;y will fail ni<!, I imxht |j<;/id 
a liulc ; i(, (liHtnihtH natui'<i ; it. Uiin!'. •, flier*; in a 
j^<;ji«;ral law without a particular ajyj/li<;ation, — 
law foi- all tliitt <lo(jH not iitcliKlc, any ono. INforiJi 
ill it;i anta^oniHin i)H'lin<;;-i to ai-jinino r<jKi«tan<;«;, \a> 
lii<;|{ with IiooI'h ; it rwn,-, to «;g^otiHni an'l l»loat<-<l 
H<'lf-<ton<!i;it ; il/ rijji;^ to a IxjdiloHH ))r<;t<;nKion, Ut un- 
natiiral rcfinin;^ an4 <;l<!vatioji whi';h (tnd;-; in liyjjoo 
ii;-,y and hcniiiial rc5i<;tion. 

Ami HO, whil«t w<5 rlo /lot j^o hityond g(;u<;ral ntaU)- 
nicjitH, it may h<; Haf<;ly affirnx^d of th<;H<; two fnciar 
phyhical anta^<jiiiHtH, that ww;h in a goo<J half, hut 
an irnpoHHihIo whohe. Ka4',h expowtH th<; almwiH of 
th<; other, hut in a ixw. HO<;i';ty, in a tru<! man, hotli 
niUHt (;ornhin<;. Natiir*; do<iH not \(\wi; th<; <;rown of 
itH af))>rohatiou, nanioly bcaiity, to any }ix;tion oi- 
«tiiihl<;iii i)V iu:U>v hut to ofi<! whi'-h cofuhirujH hoth 
tlu-.Ho (dcuKjntH ; not to th<; io(l< whicJi rcMixtM tlic 
wav(;H from aj^o to a;^*;, nor to tho wav<i which laHlicH 
inwiHMantly the ro'',k, hut tho Huperior heauty Ih with 
th<! oak which Ktandu with itn }iun<lrcd arniH aj^aiuHt 
the Ktormw of a century, and ^rowH <iVOAy year lik<} 
a Ha|)lin;^ ; or the riv<;r which ev<;r fiowing, yet in 
found in the Hanie })ed from aj^e to a^e; or, gnjatent 
<jf all, tin; man who luiH HuhniHted for yearn ann'd 
the f;hang(;s of lutturc, yet IiaH diHtanf;<;d him-self, no 



284 THE COXSFBVATTJTi. 

that when you vouiomlier what he was, and seo 
what he is, yon say, What strides ! what a disparity 
is here I 

Throughout nature the past combines iii every 
creature with the present. Each of the convohi- 
tions of the sea-shell, each node and spine marks 
one year of the tish's life ; what was the mouth of 
the shell for one season, with the addition of now 
matter by the gro^^'th of the animal, becoming- an 
ornamental node. The leaves and a shell of soft 
wood ai'e all that the vegetation of this summer has 
made : but the solid columnar stem, which lifts that 
bank of foliage into the air, to draw the eve and to 
cool us with its shade, is the gift and legacy of dead 
and buried j'cars. 

In nature, each of these elements being always 
present, each theory has a natural support. As we 
take our stand on Necessity, or on Etliics, shall we 
go for the conservative, or for the reformer. If we 
read the world historically, we shall say. Of all the 
ages, the present hour and circumstance is the cu- 
mulative result : this is the best throw of the dice 
of nature tluit has yet been, or that is yet possible. 
If we see it from the side of Will, or the ^Moral 
Sentiment, we shall accuse the Past and the Pres- 
ent, and require the impossible of tlie Future. 

But although this bifold fact lies thus united in 
real nature, and so united that no man can con- 



THE CONSERVATIVE. 285 

fcinue to exist in wliora both these ehiments do not 
work, yet men arc not philosophers, l)ut are rather 
very foolish children, who, by reason of their par- 
tiality, sec everything in the most absurd manner, 
and are the victims at all times of the nearest ob- 
ject. There is even no philosopher who is a phi- 
losopher at all times. Our experience, our percep- 
tion is conditioned by the need to acquire in parts 
and in succession, tliat is, with every truth a cer- 
tain falsehood. As this is the invariable method of 
our training, we must give it allowance, and suffer 
men to learn as they have done for six millenni- 
ums, a word at a time; to pair off into insane \yax- 
ties, and learn the amount of truth each knows 
by the denial of an equal amount of truth. For 
the present, then, to come at what sum is attainar 
ble to us, we must even hear the parties plead as 
parties. 

That which is best about conservatism, that 
which, though it cannot be expressed in detail, in- 
spires reverence in all, is the Inevitable. There ia 
the question not only what the conservative says ■ 
for himself, but, why must he say it ? What insur- 
mountable fact binds him to that side ? Here is 
the fact which men call Fate, and fate in dread de- 
grees, fate behind fate, not to be disposed of by the 
consideration that the Conscience commands this or 
that, but necessitating the question whether the fac- 



2S6 riiF covsmvATnT. 

\iltios i>f m;ut will plav lilm tiiio in losistliii;;,' tho 
fuot-s ol uuiviMsal rxjHMUMU'o ? For althouuh tho 
oomnuuuls o( tho Consoionoo aro c^ificntia/h/ ahso- 
lutt\ tln>v aiv hiatorivalh/ limitaiv. WlsJoni tUu^s 
not sook a litoial ivotitiulo. hut an ust>t"nl, that is 
a ooiulitionoil inu\ surh a ono as tlu> t'ai'uhios of 
man anJ tho i'i>nstitutu>n of thinii's will warrant. 
Tho rotvunior, tho partisan, losos hiuisolt" in ihiving- 
to {\\c utujost sonto spooialtv o( riiiht oouihu-t, until 
his own iiatuiv and all natuiv ivsist him: but Wis- 
vliuu attoiujUs ni>thiui;' onornunis ami dispivpoi^ 
tiomnl to its iH>wors, nothiuii' whioh it oannot |hm- 
fovju vu- noarlv porfonn. Wo havo all a oortain in- 
tellootion or pivsontimont i>t" ivt\n-m oxistinji" in tho 
min^l, whioh lUvs m>t vot ilosooml into tlio oharjto- 
tor, {U\il thoso who tlu\>w thomsolvos hlimllv on this 
loso tliomsolvos, ^^ hatovor thoy attoiupt in that 
ilii\H*tio»\, fails, anil ivaots snioidally on tho aotor 
hiu\solf. This is tho jvnalty t>f huving tnvnjkvniUnl 
ixatmv. For tlio existing- woi-Ul is not u droam, and 
oaitnot w ith impunitv Ih> tivnttnl as a divain ; noi- 
thor is it a disoaso : bnt it is tho u'lvund on whioh 
YOU stanil, it is tho tuothor of whom \ on woiv horn. 
Ixofoi'in vxniYoi*sos with jHvssibilitios, jvivhanoo with 
imjHv^s^ibilitios ; but hoiv is siionnl faot. This also 
was true, or it ivuld liot W : it had life iu it, or it 
cvnild i\ot h»YO oxistOil ; it has life in it, or it oi^uld 
not ivi)tii\ue. Your sohomos mav In? feasible, or 



y ///; coxsEii va ri vrc. 287 

may n^/t Ix;, };ut \}m iian the aiKh itat'jf ntnt of natum 
and a lonj( fri<;n'lH}iip and cohabibif.jon with th'; 
jK^WfjrH of natur«;. Thiw will «tan'J until a \ni\.UtT 
cant of th<; du^j Ih tiiiuhi. Th<', o/utUmi \>(:tw<'Mn tlui 
J'uturo and th<j j^ant ih one ImtwcA'Ji i>ivjnity cnijur- 
in^ and i>>ivinity depaxlin;^. Vou ura waU'/rtin-, t/> 
try your <xf>ennientH, and, if you can, t/j (Vinphi/cji 
thii arrtual order hy tijat id<rtt) repu hjic y^/n an- 
nouTK'Ji, for Ti()t\nT>!^ but G^xJ wjj] exfK;! 0^><1. liut 
j>lainly tlie burden of pr'Kjf niii«t lie with the ]>r(>- 
j(^^>r. We liold tf> tl:ii», until you ean df;njonhtrat<j 
nonndhhi'^ \x;tU',r. 

T\ni nynUixn of projK^rty and law gfX;B ba/;k for 
its orij^in t/j barharouH and Harmed tirneH ; it i» th/i 
fruit of th/j Harne rnyHt/;riou« c/MVUi an the rninei-al 
or aninial world. There in a natur-al wmtiment 
and ])tti]>(>HW,mwn in favor of aj^e, of ancjiHtorn, of 
barbarouH and al>original u«a{^e«, which in a horn- 
ag^e t^j the elenujnt of mucjimhy arul divinity which 
Ih in them. The reHjK^d; for the old uhuidH of 
l>hu'MH, of mountains and Htn^dniH, in univerHaL 
llie Indian and barbaroan name can never Vkj kuj)- 
jAanti'A without Iokh. Tljifj ancients t<dl iih that the 
gfxl« lovfifl the Kthiopiarui for their Htabl/; (mHUmm ; 
and tlie Kj^/tians and Chal/leani*, vrYKfHa onfpn 
c^^uM nfjt be explor^j^l, jfaanhd arnon;^ th/i juni/^r 
triU;H of Tirfjec^i and It-aly for HUf^cjl nation*. 

Moreover, »o deep j« the foundation of the ex- 



288 THE CONSERVATIVE. 

isting' social systoiu, that it leaves no one out of it. 
We may be partial, but Fate is not. All men 
have their root in it. You who quarrel with the 
arrangements of society, and are willing to embroil 
all, and risk the indisputable good that exists, for 
the chance of better, live, move, and have your 
being in this, and your deeds contradict . 
words every day. For as you cannot jump . oiu 
the ground without using the resistance of the 
ground, nor put out the boat to sea without sh^n'- 
ing from the shore, nor attain liberty Avithout r- 
jecting obligation, so you are under the necessit}' 
of using the Actual oi'der of things, in order to 
disiise it ; to live by it, whilst you wish to take 
away its life. The past has baked your loaf, and 
in the strength of its bread you would break up the 
oven. But you are betrayed by your o^^^l nature. 
You also are conservatives. However men please to 
style themselves, I see no other than a conservative 
party. You are not only identical Wv\\\ us in your 
needs, but also in your methods and aims. You 
quarrel with my conservatism, but it is to build up 
one of your own ; it will have a new beginning, 
but the same course and end, the same trials, the 
same passions ; among the lovers of the new I ob- 
serve that there is a jealousy of the newest, and I 
that the seceder from the seeeder is as damnable f 
as the pope himself. 



THE CONSERVATIVE. 289 

On these and the like grounds of general state- 
ment, conservatism plants itself without danger of 
being displaced. Especially before this personal 
appeal, the innovator must confess his weakness, 
must confess that no man is to be found good 
enough to be entitled to stand champion for the 
principle. But when this great tendency comes to 
practical encounters, and is challenged by young 
men, to whom it is no abstraction, but a fact of 
hunger, distress, and exclusion from opportunities, 
it must needs seem injurious. The youth, of course, 
is an innovator by the fact of his birth. There he 
stands, newly born on the planet, a universal beg- 
gar, with all the reason of things, one would say, 
on his side. In his first consideration how to feed, 
clothe, and warm himself, he is met by warnings on 
every hand that this thing and that thing have 
owners, and he must go elsewhere. Then he says, 
' If I am born in the earth, where is my part ? have 
the goodness, gentlemen of tliis world, to show me 
my wood-lot, where I may fell my wood, my field 
where to plant my corn, my pleasant ground where 
to build my cabin.' 

' Touch any wood, or field, or house-lot, on your 
peril,' cry all the gentlemen of this world ; ' but 
you may come and work in ours, for us, and we 
will give you a piece of bread.' 

' And what is that peril ? ' 

VOL. I. 19 



290 THE CONSERVATIVE. 

' Knives and muskets, if we meet you in the act ; 
imprisonment, if we find you afterward.' 
' And by what authority, kind gentlemen ? ' 

* By our law.' 

' And your law, — is it just ? ' 
' As just for you as it was for us. We wrought 
for others under this law, and got our lauds so.' 
' I repeat the question, Is your law just ? ' 

* Not quite just, but necessary. Moreover, it is 
juster now than it was when we were born ; wo 
have made it milder and more equal.' 

' I will none of your law,' returns the youH? ; 
'it encumbers me. I cannot imderstand, or so 
much as spare time to read that needless library 
of your laws. Nature has sufficiently provided me 
with rewards and sharp penalties, to bind me not 
to transgress. Like the Persian noble of old, I 
ask *' that I may neither command nor obey." I 
do not Avish to enter into youi* complex social sys- 
tem. I shall serve those whom I can, and they 
who can will serve me. I shall seek those whom I 
love, and shun those whom I love not, and what 
more can all your laws render me ? ' 

With equal earnestness and good faith, replies 
to this plaintiff an upholder of the establishment, 
a man of many virtues : 

'Your opposition is feather-brained and over- 
fine. Young man, I have no skill to tallc with 



THE CONSERVATIVE. 291 

you, but look at me ; I have risen early and sat 
late, and toiled honestly and painfully for very 
many years. I never dreamed about methods ; I 
laid my bones to, and drudged for the good I pos- 
sess ; it was not got by fraud, nor by luck, but by 
work, and you must show me a warrant like these 
stubborn facts in your own fidelity and labor, be- 
fore I suffer you, on the faith of a few fine words, 
to ride into my estate, and claim to scatter it as 
your own.' 

' Now you touch the heart of the matter,' re- 
plies the reformer. ' To that fidelity and labor I 
pay homage. I am unworthy to arraign your man- 
ner of living, until I too have been tried. But I 
should be more unworthy if I did not tell you why 
I cannot walk in your steps. I find this vast net- 
work, wliich you call property, extended over the 
whole planet. I cannot occupy the bleakest crag 
of the White Hills or the Alleghany Range, but 
some man or corporation steps up to me to show 
me that it is his. Now, though I am very peace- 
able, and on my private account coidd well enough 
die, since it appears there was some mistake in my 
creation, and that I have been missent to this earth, 
where all the seats were already taken, — yet I feel 
called upon in behalf of rational nature, which I 
represent, to declare to you my opinion that if the 
Earth is yours so also is it mine. All your aggre- 



% 
202 THE VOy^KIi 1.1/71 7v'. 

ptto existoni'os an^ loss to me a faot than is my 
own ; as I am born (d the I'^arth, so the Eavth is 
given ti> me, what I wiint of it to till and to plant ; 
nor eoiiKl I, w itlunit pusillairimity, omit to claim so 
mueh. I must iu>t only have a name to live, I 
must live. My vivnius leads mo to buihl a ilift'ei'*- 
eut manuev oi life fnuu tiny of youi's. I emniot 
then syKHiv von the whole \\i>iUl. I love you bet- 
ter. 1 nmst tell vou the tiuih unu'tieallv ; am? 
take that whieh vou eall yours. It is (JoiVs ^v ' 
auil uiiue : yam's as niueh as you want, ine us 
mueh as I want. Ivsides, 1 know your ^^ vs ; I 
know the sympton\s of the tlisease. To the eiui of 
yi>ur iH>wer yon w ill serve this lie w hieh ivheats von. 
Your uaut is a g'ult' whieh the possession ot" tb - 
luwid earth wouUl not till. Wnider sm\ in heaven 
you would pluek down fnnn shiniuii on the uni- 
vei'se, ami make him a pii^perty and px'ivaey, it" 
von eonld ; and the moon and the muth star vou 
would uniekly have invasion for in vour eloset and 
btHl-ehandHn-. \\ hat you ilo not want for use, you 
ei-ave for ornament, anil what vour eouvenienee 
eonld spai\>, your pride cannot.' 

On the other hand, prtvisely the defence which 
was set up for the British Constitution, namely 
that with all its admitted defects, i\)tten bounighs 
and monopolic^s, it worked well, and substantial 
justice was somehow done ihu wiv,' 



THE CONSERVATIVE. 293 

worth did get intfj jmrliament, and every interest 
did by right, or miglit, or sleight, get represented ; 
— the same defence is set up for the existing insti- 
tutions. They are not the best ; they are not just ; 
and in respect to you, [>ersonally, O brave young 
rnan ! they cannot be justified. Tliey have, it is 
most true, left you no acre for your own, and no 
law but our law, to the ordaining of whic^h you were 
DO }>arty. But they do answer the end, they are 
really friendly to the good, unfriendly to the bad ; 
tiiey »e(X)nd the industrious aud the kind ; they 
fost<^r genius. They really have so much flexibility 
as i') afford your talent and cliaracter, on the whole, 
tho same chance of demonstration and success 
which they might have if there was no law and no 
propei-ty. 

It iB trivial and merely superstitious to say that 
nothing Ls given you, no outfit, no exhibition : for 
in this institution of credit, wliich is as universal 
as honesty and promise in the human ofjuntenauce, 
always some neighbor stands ready U) be bread and 
land and tools and stock to the young adventurer. 
And if in any one respect they have come short, 
see what ample retribution of good they have made. 
They liave lost no time and spared no expense 
to collect libraries, museums, galleries, colleges, 
palaces, hospitals, observatories, cities. The ages 
have 1. a idle, nor kings slack, nor the rich nig- 



294 THE CONSERVATIVE. 

garclly. Have we not atoned for this small offence 
(which we could not help) o£ leaving you no right 
in the soil, by this splendid indemnity of ancestral 
and national wealth ? Would you have been born 
like a gipsy in a hedge, and preferred your free- 
dom on a heath, and the range of a planet which 
had no shed or boscage to cover you from sun and 
wind, — to this towered and citied world ? to this 
world of Rome, and Memphis, and Constantinople, 
and Vienna, and Paris, and London, and New 
York ? For thee Naples, Florence, and Venice ; 
for thee the fair Mediterranean, the sunny Adri- 
atic ; for thee both Indies smile ; for thee the hos- 
pitable North opens its heated palaces under the 
polar circle ; for thee roads have been cut in every 
direction across the land, and fleets of floating pal- 
aces with every security for strength and provision 
for luxury, swim by sail and by steam through all 
the waters of this world. Every island for thee 
has a town ; every town a hotel. Though thou 
wast born landless, yet to thy industry and thrift 
and small condescension to the established usage, 
— scores of servants are swarming in every strange 
place with cap and knee to thy command ; scores, 
nay hundreds and thousands, for thy wardrobe, thy 
table, thy chamber, thy library, thy leisure ; and 
every whim is anticipated and served by the best 
ability of the whole population of each country. 



I 



THE CONSERVATIVE. 295 

The king on the throne governs for thee, and the 
judge judges ; the barrister pleads, the farmer tills, 
the joiner hammers, the postman rides. Is it not 
exaggerating a trifle to insist on a formal acknowl- 
edgment of youi" claims, when these substantial ad- 
vantages have been secured to you ? Now can your 
children be educated, your labor turned to their ad- 
vantage, and its fruits secured to them after your 
deiith. It is frivolous to say you have no acre, be- 
cause you liave not a mathematically measured piece 
of lani L IVovidence takes care that you shall have 
a place, that you are waited for, and come accred- 
ited ; a;nd as soon as you put your gift to use, you 
shall have acre or acre's worth according to your 
exhibition of desert, — acre, if you need land ; — 
acre's worth, if you prefer to draw, or carve, or 
make shoes or wheels, to the tilling of the soil. 

Besides, it might temper your indignation at the 
supposed wrong which society has done you, to 
keep the question before you, how society got into 
this predicament ? Who put things on this false 
basis ? No single man, but all men. No man vol- 
untarily and knowingly ; but it is the residt of that 
degree of culture there is in the planet. The or- 
der of things is as good as the character of the pop- 
ulation permits. Consider it as the work of a 
great and beneficent and progressive necessity, 
which, from the fu'st pulsation in the first animal 



lifo, up to tho pvosont hii;l» oiiUuio *»l' tho In^st iia- 
tuMis, hiis {ulv:u\ivU thus tai', TlumU tlii> nulo t'os- 
to»^u\otl\oi' thouiih she has tnui;ht vou a Ivttor wis- 
iUmu thau hoi" own, a Jul has sot hojHvs in yi>nv hoai't 
Nvhioh sliall bo histoi'v in tho no\t ajivs. \ ou aro 
yovn'solt" tho ivsuU ot" (his niannor ot" livitig-, this 
foul oouiiMtMuiso, this vitupovatoil SihIouu It uom^ 
isIuhI YtniNvith oaiv auvl U»yo i»n its bivast, as it hail 
nouvishoil iuan\ a Knov ot" tho ii>:ht aiul u»anv a 
IHvt, aiul pixjphot, and toaohov of luon. Is it so ii^ 
ivnunliaUlv IkuI ? Thou aiitiin, if tho uutiii-iitioixs 
aiv ovnisiiloitnl, ilo t\v>t all tho niisohiofs virtually 
v«uis^l\? Tho form is hail, hut soo vvui not how 
OYovy poi'sonal ohavaotor ivaots on tho form, ami 
luakos it no\N ' A stwMiij' poi'sou makos tho law 
tuul oustiMU null Ivfoiv his own will. Thon tho 
prinoiplo of lovo auvl truth Jvaj^^H^ars in the stviot- 
o*t ot>m*ts af tWhion ami pi\>}wty. I'mlor tho 
violu\st i>>lvs, in tho ilarlinji's of tho soUvtost oiivlos 
af Kui\>ivan or Amovioau avistiH'n»i'y, tlto sti>nijj 
hi^vvt will lH\vt willi loYo of n\ankiml, with impa- 
tiojuv of atxuilouttU distinotions, with tho lUvitire to 
aohioYo its own fato and inako ovory oruamont it 
Yvoai*5> aiitlunxtio ami i\\U. 

Moiw^Yor, as vvo have ahvaily sliowii that thoro 
is uo pnrt> rv^formor, so it is to K> cvnsiilonxl that 
thoiv is ito pniv iwnsorvatiYO, no man Yvho t'lvm 
tho Wiiiuninsi to tho ond of his lifo inaitit^iis the 



TIIF. aOyiHKnVATTVE. '1^)1, 

d(;f(i<;ti v^. inHtitutioriH ; hut ho wlio Hots his fWjo liko 
ailiiit ugulrmt cv<;ry nov(jlty, when approached hi th<5 
f;onfi(icii<;(; of coriverHatiou, I/i IIk; |>rc8enc<; of 
iVicndly and generouH p(;tHonH, Jus also Lin ^ra<;iouH 
arid j'elciitui;^ mornentH, and OHpouHew for tlio tirri(i 
tJn5 t;au8e of imin ; and even if thitt }>c a Hlioiilived 
emotion, yet the renienilnanee of it in private liourH 
niiti;.;at<jH hiH MelliislinetiH and e<jnjplian(;e with cuk- 

The Friar J{<;nuird lamented in liin cell on 

louut Ceniw the crinHjH of njankind, and rihing 

o.M HI) 'nin;^ y>efore day from JiiH be<J of jhosh and 

dry !«• ' gh, he gnawed hin rootn and Ijerriew, diank 

; rinj^, and net fortii to j^o to J{ome U> i<> 

'I the corruption u\ niunkin<]. On liJH way lie 

jountered many travelhjrw who j^rrjeted him cour- 

teoiwly, and the calkins of th(i jjeanantK and the 

caKtle« of the lordw Hupplied hin few want«. When 

he came at laHt to Kohk;, his J^iety and good will 

easily introduced hirn to many familieH of the rich, 

and on the first day lu; saw and talked with gentle 

motliers with their }>aheB at their breasts, who told 

him how much love they bore their children, and 

how they were pei^ilexed in their daily walk l<,'Bt 

th<;y should fail in their duty to them. ' VVltat!' 

he said, ' and this on rich embroiriered carpets, on 

marl>le floors, with cunning scuij^ture, and carved 

wood, and rich pictures, and piles of hooloi about 



298 rUE CONSERVATIVE. 

you ? ' — ' Tvook at our pii^tnvos ami boi^ks,' tliey 
saiil, ' aiul >vo will toll yt>u, gootl Fathov, how wo 
spoilt tho last ovoiiiut;'. Thoso ai"0 storios of goilly 
chililvon and holy tamilu^s ami voiuantie sacriHoovS 
mailo in oKl or iti it\'t>nt tiinos by ji'veat aiul not 
luoan povsons ; ami last evouiu>; our tamily was 
collootod ami our husbautls ami brothers disooiirsed 
sadK on what we I'ouhl save ami civo in tho hard 
times.' Thou oamo iu the men, and they said, 
' AVhat ohoer, brother? Does thy eon vent want 
gifts? ' riuMj tlu> Iriar Inmuml went home swiftly 
with otht>r thonji'hts than ho bivuiiht, sayinji", ' Th's 
way of life is wivng", yet these Romans, whom 1 
praytxl Gotl to desti-oy, ai-o lovers, they are lovers ; 
what ean 1 do ? ' 

The ivformer ooneedes that these mitiiiations ox- 
ist, and that if he proposed oomfort, he sliould 
take sides with the establishment. Your wonls are 
exeellent, but they do not tell the whole. C^onser- 
Aatism is afHnont and openhandtnl, but there is a 
ennninji' juggle in riohes. 1 observe that they take 
somew hat for everything they give. 1 look biggvr, 
but am less ; I have inoiv elothes, \*\\i am not so 
warnv ; mm-e armor, biit less eouitige ; more books, 
but loss wit. ^^ hat you say of your planted, 
buildtHl and dooonittHl world is true enough, and I 
eladlv avail mvsolf of its eonvenieuoe ; vet I have 
rtnnarked that what holds in purtioulai*, holds in 



THE CONSERVATIVE. 299 

general, that the plant Man does not require for 
his most glorious flowering this pomp of prepara^ 
tion and convenience, but the thouglits of some 
beggarly Homer who strolhid, God knows when, in 
the infancy and ljarl)arism of the old world ; the 
gravity and sense of some slave Moses who leads 
away his fellow slaves from their masters ; the con- 
t(;mplation of some Scythian Anacharsis ; the erect, 
formidable valor of some Dorian townsmen in the 
town of Sparta ; the vigor of Clovis the Frank, and 
Alfred the Saxon, and Alaric the Goth, and Ma- 
homet, Ali and Omar the Arabians, Saladin the 
Curd, and Othman the Turk, sufficed to build what 
you call society on the spot and in the instant when 
the sound mind in a sound body appeared. Ki(;h 
and fine is your dress, O conservatism ! your horses 
are of the best Ijlood ; your roads are well cut and 
well paved ; your pantry is full of meats and your 
cellar of wines, and a very good state and condi- 
tion are you for gentlemen and ladies to live under ; 
but every one of these goods steals away a drop of 
my blood. I want the necessity of supplying my 
own wants. All this costly culture of yours is not 
necessary. Greatness does not need it. Yonder 
peasant, who sits neglected there in a corner, car- 
ries a whole revolution of man and nature in his 
head, which shall be a sacred history to some future 
ages. For man is the end of nature ; nothing so 



300 THE CONSERVATUT.. 

easily organizes itself in every part of the universe 
as lie ; no moss, no lichen is so easily born ; and he 
talves along with him and puts out from himself 
the whole apparatus of society and condition extem- 
pore, as an army encamps in a desert, and where 
all was just now blowing sand, creates a white city 
in an hour, a government, a market, a place for 
feasting, for conversation, and for love. 

These considerations, urged by those whose char- 
acters and whose fortunes are yet to be formed, 
must needs command the sympathy of all reasona- 
ble persons. But beside tliat charity which should 
make all adult persons interested for the youth, 
and engage them to see that he has a free field and 
fair play on his entrance into life, we are bound to 
see that the society of which we compose a part, 
does not permit the formation or continuance of 
views and px'actices injurious to the honor and wel- 
fare of mankind. The objection to conservatism, 
when embodied in a party, is that in its love of acts 
it hates principles : it lives in the senses, not in 
truth ; it sacrifices to despair ; it goes for available- 
ness in its candidate, not for worth ; and for expe- 
diency in its measures, and not for the right. Un- 
der pretence of allo\Ndng for fi'iction, it makes so' 
many additions and supplements to the machine of 
society that it will play smoothly and softly, but will 
no longer grind any grist. 



THE CONSERVATIVE. 301 

The conservative party in the universe concedes 
that the radical would talk suffici(;ntly to the pur- 
pose, if we were still in the garden of Eden ; he 
legislates for man as he ought to be ; his theory is 
right, but he makes no allowance for friction ; and 
this omission makes his whole doctrine false. The 
idealist retorts that the conservative falls into a far 
more noxious enor in the other extreme. The con- 
servative assumes sickness as a necessity, and his 
social frame is a hospital, his total legislation is for 
the present distress, a universe in slippers and flan- 
nels, with bib and papspoon, swallowing pills and 
herl)-tea. Sickness gets organized as well as health, 
the vice as well as the virtue. Now that a vicious 
system of trade has existed so long, it has stereo- 
typed itself in the human generation, and misers 
are bom. And now that sickness has got such a 
foothold, lc])rosy has grown cunning, has got into 
the ballot-box ; the lepers outvote the clean ; so- 
ciety has resolved itscK into a Hospital Committee, 
and all its laws are quarantine. If any man resist 
and set up a foolisli hope he has entertained as 
good against the general despair, Society frowns on 
him, shuts him out of her opportunities, her gTana- 
ries, her refectories, her water and bread, and will 
serve him a sexton's turn. Conservatism takes as 
low a view of every part of human action and pas- 
sion. Its religion is just as bad ; a lozenge for the 



802 THE COXSERYATIVK. 

sick ; a dolin-ous tune to l>Oii,iulo the distemper ; 
mitii;atit)ns of pain by pillows and anodynes ; al- 
ways mitigations, never remedies ; pardons for sin, 
funeral honors, — never self-lu'lj), renovation, and 
virtiie. Its social and political action has no better 
aim ; to keep out wind and weather, to bring- the 
week and year about, mul make the world last our 
day ; not to sit i>n the world and steer it ; not to 
sink tht> memory of the past in the glory of a new 
i\\\(\ more excellent ci'eation ; a timitl cobbler and 
pati^her, it degrades whatever it touches. The cause 
of education is urged in this couutiv with the ut- 
most earnestness, — on what ground? AVhv on this, 
that the people have the power, and if they ai'e not 
instructed to sympathize with the intelligent, read- 
ing, trading, ami governing class ; inspired with a 
taste for the same competitions and prizes, they 
will upset the fair pageant of eTudicature, and per- 
haps lay a hand on the sacred niiniiments of wealth 
itself, and new distribute the land. Religion is 
taught in the same spirit. The contnietors who 
were building a road out of Baltimoiv, some yeai-s 
ago, found the Irish laborei's quarrelsome and re- 
fi-actorv to a degi'ee that embarrassed the agents 
and seriously interrupted the progress of the work. 
The corporation weie advised to call oi¥ the police 
and build a Catholic chapel, which they did ; the 
priest presently restored order, and the work went 



THE CONSERVATIVE. 303 

on prosperously. Such hints, be sure, are too valu- 
able to 1)6 lost. If you do not value the Sabbath, 
or other religious institutions, give yourself no con- 
cern about niaintaining them. They have already 
acquired a market value as conservators of prop- 
erty ; and if priest and church-member should fail, 
the chambers of commerce and the presidents of 
the banks, the very innholders and landlords of the 
county, would muster with fury to their support. 
Of course, religion in such hands loses its es- 
sence. Instead of that reliance which the soul sug- 
gests, on the eternity of truth and duty, men are 
misled into a reliance on institutions, which, the 
moment they cease to be the instantaneous crea- 
tions of the devout sentiment, are worthless. Ite- 
ligion among the low becomes low. As it loses its 
truth, it loses credit with the sagacious. They de- 
tect the falsehood of the preaching, but when they 
say so, all good citizens cry, Hush ; do not weaken 
the State, do not take off the strait jacket from 
dangerous persons. Every honest fellow must keep 
up the hoax the best he can ; must patronize provi- 
dence and piety, and wherever he sees anything 
that will keep men amused, schools or churches or 
poetry or picture-galleries or music, or what not, 
he must cry " Hist-a^boy," and urge the game on. 
What a compliment we pay to the good Spikit 
with oui' superserviceable zeal ! 



But iu>t ti> balaiu'o it\Hsinis for ami against the 
ostaWislimout anv louiivr, ami it" it still bo askod 
in tliis norossity of partial ors;aiilii;atiou, which 
party t>n tlio wholo has the hii^host claims on onr 
svmpathy, — I bviuii' it home to the private heart, 
wheiv all such questions mnst have their tinal arbi- 
tivment. I low will every stron*;" ami iivneivus 
mind choose its pouml, — -with the ilefemlers of 
the old? or with the swkei*s of the new? AVhich 
is that state which pivmises to edify a g'lvat, brave, 
ajul beneticent man : to thnnv him on his ivsources, 
and tax the stren»ith of his character ? C)n whicli 
part will each oi ns timl himself in the hour of 
health and of aspiration? 

1 uudei-stand well the rospe<»t of mankind for 
war, Invanse that bivaks up the Chinese stagnation 
of svxaety, and demoiistrates the personal mei-its of 
all men. A state of war or anaivhy, in w hich law 
has little fonv, is so far valuable that it puts every 
man i»u trial. The man oi principle is known as 
such, ami even iii the fury of faction is ivsjHH'teil. 
In the civil wai-s of Franw, Montaigne alone, 
amoniT all the Fi-eneh gentry, kept his castle utites 
\u\kvri\Hl, and made his j>ei"sonal integrity as gxxnl 
at least as a ivgiment. The man of coni-agv and 
ivsouivt\> is sliowii, and the eJft'emiuate and base 
jvi*son. Thoiitt^ who rise alnne war, and those who 
fall below it, it easllv discriu\inates, as well as those 



THE (JONHEliVATlVE. 805 

who, accepting itH imhIc conditions, keep their own 
heaxl by their own Hword. 

But in peiuj<; and a eomni(;reial state we depend, 
not as we ought, on our knowledge and all men's 
knowledge that we are honest men, Ijut we cow- 
ai'dly l(!arj on the virtue of otliei-s. For It is al- 
ways at last the virtue of some men in tlie society, 
whi(;h keeps the law in any reverence and power. 
Is there not something sliaraeful tliat I should owe 
my peac<iful occ-upaney of my house and field, not 
to the knowledge of my <;<juntrymen tliat I am use- 
ful, hut to their respect for sundry other repu- 
table perHons, I know not whom, whose joint virtue 
still keej)S the law in good odor? 

It will never make any difference to a hero what 
the laws are. ilis gi'eatness will shine and accom- 
plish itself unto the end, whether they second him 
or not. If he have earned his br(;ad Ijy drudgery, 
and in the narrow and crooked ways which were 
all an evil law had left him, he will make it at 
least honora]>le by his expenditure. Of the past 
he will take no heed ; for its wrongs he will not 
hold himself responsiljle : he will say. All the mean- 
ness of my progenitors shall not bereave me of the 
power tf> make this hour and company fair and for- 
tunat*;. Whatsoever streams of power and com- 
modity flow to me, sliall of me a^isquire healing vir- 
tue, and become fountains of safety. Cannot I too 

VOL. I. 20 



806 THE CONSERVATIVE. 

descend a Redeemer into nature ? AVhosover here- 
after shall name my name, shall not record a male- 
factor but a benefactor in the earth. If there be 
power in good intention, in fidelity, and in toil, the 
north wind shall be purer, the stars in heaven shall 
glow with a kindlier beam, that I have lived. I 
am primarily engaged to myself to be a public ser- 
vant of all the gods, to demonstrate to all men that 
there is intelligence and good will at the heart of 
things, and ever higher and yet higher leadings. 
These are my engagements ; how can your law 
further or hinder me in what I shall do to men ? 
On the other hand, these dispositions establish 
their relations to me. Wherever there is worth, I 
shall be greeted. Wherever there are men, are 
the objects of my study and love. Sooner or later 
all men will be my friends, and will testify in all 
methods the energy of their regard. I cannot 
thank your law for my protection. I protect it. 
It is not in its power to protect me. It is my busi- 
ness to make myself revered. I depend on my 
honor, my labor, and my dispositions for my place 
in the affections of mankind, and not on any con- 
ventions or parchments of yours. 

But if I allow myself in derelictions and become 
idle and dissolute, I quickly come to love the pro- 
tection of a strong law, beca^ise I feel no title in 
myself to my advantages. To the intemperate and 



TEE CONSERVATIVE. 307 

covetous person no love flows ; to him mankind 
would pay no rent, no dividend, if force were once 
relaxed ; nay, if they could give their verdict, they 
would say that his self-indulgence and his oppres- 
sion deserved punishment from society, and not 
that rich board and lodging he now enjoys. The 
law acts then as a screen of his unworthiness, and 
makes him worse the longer it protects him. 

In conclusion, to return from this alternation of 
partial views to the high platform of universal and 
necessary history, it is a happiness for mankind 
that innovation has got on so far and has so free a 
field before it. The boldness of the hope men en- 
tertain transcends all former experience. It calms 
and cheers them with the picture of a simple and 
equal life of truth and piety. And this hope flow- 
ered on what tree ? It was not imported from the 
stock of some celestial plant, but grew here on the 
wild crab of conservatism. It is much that this 
old and vituperated system of things has borne so 
fair a child. It predicts that amidst a planet peo- 
pled with conservatives, one Reformer may yet be 
born. 



THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 



A LECTURE READ AT THE MASONIC TEMPLE, BOSTON, JANUARY, 

1842. 



THE TKANSCENDENTALIST. 



The first tiling we have to say respecting what 
are called new views here in New England, at the 
present time, is, that they are not new, but the very 
oldest of thoughts cast into the mould of these new 
times. The light is always identical in its compo- 
sition, but it falls on a great variety of objects, and 
by so falling is first revealed to us, not in its own 
form, for it is formless, but in theirs ; in like man- 
ner, thought only appears in the ol)jects it classi- 
fies. What is popularly called Transcendentalism 
among us, is Idealism ; Idealism as it appears in 
1842. As thinkers, mankind have ever divided 
into two sects. Materialists and Idealists ; the first 
class founding on experience, the second on con- 
sciousness ; the first class beginning to think from 
the data of the senses, the second class perceive 
that the senses are not final, and say. The senses 
give us representations of things, but what are the 
things themselves, they cannot tell. The materi- 
alist insists on facts, on histoiy, on the force of 
circumstances and the animal wants of man ; the 



812 THE TRAXSCENDENTALIST. 

idealist on the power of Thought and of Will, on in- 
spiration, on miracle, on individual culture. These 
two modes of thinking are both natural, but the 
idealist contends that his way of thinking is in 
higher nature. He concedes all that the other af- 
firms, admits the impressions of sense, admits their 
coherency, their use and beauty, and then asks the 
materialist for his grounds of assurance that things 
are as his senses represent them. But I, he says, 
affirm facts not affected by the illusions of sense, 
facts which are of the same nature as the faculty 
which reports them, and not liable to doubt ; facts 
which in their first appearance to us assume a na- 
tive su})eriority to material facts, degrading these 
into a language by which the first are to be spoken ; 
facts which it only needs a retirement from the 
senses to discern. Every materialist will be an 
idealist ; but an idealist can never go backward to 
be a materialist. 

The idealist, in speaking of events, sees them as 
spirits. He does not deny the sensuous fact : by 
no means ; but he will not see that alone. lie does 
not deny the presence of this table, this chair, and 
the walls of this room, but he looks at these things 
as the reverse side of the tapestry, as the other end, 
each being a sequel or completion of a spiritual 
fact which nearly concerns hun. This manner of 
looking at things transfers every object in nature 



THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 313 

from an independent and anomalous position with- 
out there, into the consciousness. Even the materi- 
alist Condillac, perhaps the most logical expounder 
of materialism, was constrained to say, " Though 
we should soar into the heavens, though we should 
sink into the abyss, we never go out of ourselves ; 
it is always our own thought that we perceive." 
What more could an idealist say ? 

The materialist, secure in the certainty of sensa- 
tion, mocks at fine-spun theories, at star-gazers and 
dreamers, and believes that his life is solid, that he 
at least takes nothing for gi'anted, but knows where 
he stands, and what he does. Yet how easy it is 
to show liim that he also is a phantom walking and 
working amid phantoms, and that he need only ask 
a question or two beyond his daily questions to 
find his solid universe growing dim and impalpable 
before his sense. The sturdy capitalist, no matter 
how deep and square on blocks of Quincy granite 
he lays the foundations of his banking-house or 
Exchange, must set it, at last, not on a cube cor- 
responding to the angles of his structure, but on a 
mass of unknown materials and solidity, red-hot or 
white-hot perhaps at the core, which rounds off to 
an almost perfect sphericity, and lies floating in soft 
air, and goes spinning away, dragging bank and 
banker with it at a rate of thousands of miles the 
hour, he knows not whither, — a bit of bullet, now 



314 THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 

glimnioring, now darkling throngh a small cuLic 
space on the edge of an unimaginable pit of empti- 
ness. And this wild balloon, in which his whole 
venture is embarked, is a just symbol of his whole 
state and faculty. One thing at least, he says, is 
certain, and does not give me the headache, that 
figures do not lie ; the multiplication table has been 
hithoito fomid unimpeachable truth ; and, more- 
over, if I put a gold eagle in my safe, I find it 
again to-morrow ; — but for these thoughts, I know 
not whence they are. They change and pass away. 
But ask him why he believes that an uniform ex- 
perience will continue uniform, or on what grounds 
he founds his faith in his figiires, and he will per- 
ceive that his mental fabric is built up on just as 
strange and quaking foundations as his proud edi- 
fice of stone. 

In the order of thought, the materialist takes 
his departure from the external world, and esteems 
a man as one product of that. The idealist takes 
his departure from his consciousness, and reckons 
the world an appearance. The materialist respects 
sensible masses. Society, Government, social art and 
luxury, every establishment, every mass, whether 
majority of numbers, or extent of space, or amount 
of objects, every social action. The idealist has 
another measure, which is metaiihysical, namely the 
rank which things themselves take in his conscious- 



THE transceni)?:ntalist. 315 

ness ; not at all the size or apjDearance. Mind is 
the only reality, of which men and all other natures 
are better or worse reflectors. Nature, literature, 
history, are only subjective phenomena. Although 
in his action overpowered by the laws of action, 
and so, warmly cooperating with men, even prefer- 
ring them to himself, yet when he speaks scientif- 
ically, or after the order of thought, he is con- 
strained to degrade persons into representatives of 
truths. He does not respect labor, or the products 
of labor, namely property, otherwise than as a 
manifold symbol, illustrating with wonderfid fidel- 
ity of details the laws of being ; he does not resjject 
government, except as far as it reiterates the law 
of his mind ; nor the church, nor charities, nor arts, 
for themselves ; but hears, as at a vast distance, 
what they say, as if his consciousness would speak 
to him through a pantomimic scene. Ilis thought, 
■ — that is the Universe. His experience inclines 
him to behold the procession of facts you call the 
world, as flowing perpetually outward from an in- 
visible, unsounded centre in himself, centre alike of 
him and of them, and necessitating him to regard 
all things as having a subjective or relative exis- 
tence, relative to that aforesaid Unknown Centre 
of him. 

From this transfer of the world into the con- 
sciousness, this beholding of all tilings in the mind, 



316 THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 

follow easily his whole ethics. It is simpler to be 
self-dependent. The height, the deity of man is to 
be self-sustained, to need no gift, no foreign force. 
Society is good when it does not violate me, but 
best when it is likest to solitude. Eveiything real 
is self-existent. Everything divine shares the self- 
existence of Deity. All that you (;all the woild is 
the shadow of that substance which you are, the 
perpetual creation of the powers of thought, of 
those that ai'e dependent and of those that are in- 
dependent of your will. Do not cumber yourself 
with fruitless i)ains to mend and remedy remote ef- 
fects ; let the soul be erect, and all things will go 
well. You think me the child of mv circumstances: 
I make my circumstance. Let any thought or mo- 
tive of mine be different from that they are, the 
difference will transform my condition and econ- 
omy. I — this thought wliieh is called I — is the 
mould into whicli the world is poured like melted 
wax. The mould is invisible, but the world be- 
trays the shape of the mould. You call it the 
power of circumstance, but it is the power of me. 
Am I in harmony with myself ? my position will 
seem to you just and commanding. Am I vicious 
and insane ? my fortunes will seem to you obscure 
and descending. As I am, so shall T associate, and 
so shall I act ; Caesar's history will paint out Cae- 
sar. Jesus acted so, because he thought so. I do 



THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 317 

not wish to overlook or to gainsay any reality ; I 
say I make my circumstance ; but if you ask me, 
Whence am I ? I feel like other men my relation 
to that Fact which cannot be spoken, or defined, 
nor even thought, but which exists, and will exist. 

The Transcendentalist adopts the whole connec- 
tion of spiritual doctrine. Pie believes in miracle, 
in the perpetual openness of the human mind to 
new influx of light and power ; he believes in inspi- 
ration, and in ecstasy. He wishes that the spiritual 
principle should be suffered to demonstrate itself 
to the end, in all possible applications to the state 
of man, without the admission of anything uns]>irit- 
ual ; that is, anything positive, dogmatic, personal. 
Thus the spiritual measure of ins])iration is the 
depth of the thought, and never, who stiid it? 
And so he resists all attempts to palm other rxdes 
and measures on the spirit than its own. 

In action he easily incurs the charge of antino- 
mianism l)y his avowal that he, who has the Law- 
giver, may with safety not only neglect, but even 
contravene every written commandment. In the 
play of Othello, the expiring Desdemona absolves 
her husband of the murder, to her attendant Emilia. 
Afterwards, when Emilia charges him with the 
crime, Othello exclaims, 

" Yon heard her say herself it was not I." 

Emilia replies. 



318 THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 

" The more angel she, and thou the blacker devil." 
Of this fine incident, Jacobi, the Transcendental 
moralist, makes use, with other parallel instances, 
in his reply to Fichte. elacobi, refusing all meas- 
ure of right and wrong except the determinations 
of the private spirit, remarks that there is no crime 
but has sometimes been a virtue. " I," he says, 
" am that atheist, that godless person who, in op- 
position to an imaginary doctrine of calculation, 
would lie as the dying Desdemona lied ; would lie 
and deceive, as Pylades when he personated Ores- 
tes ; would assassinate like Timoleon ; would per- 
jure myself like Epaminondas and John de Witt ; 
I would resolve on suicide like Cato ; I would com- 
mit sacrilege with David ; yea, and pluck ears of 
corn on the Sabbath, for no other reason than that 
I was fainting for lack of food. For I have assur- 
ance in myself that in pardoning these faults ac- 
cording to the letter, man exerts the sovereign right 
which the majesty of his being confers on him ; he 
sets the seal of his divine nature to the grace he ac- 
cords." 1 

In like manner, if there is anything grand and 
daring in human thought or virtue, any reliance on 
the vast, the unknown ; any presentiment, any ex- 
travagance of faith, the sjjiritualist adopts it as 
most in nature. The oriental mind has always 

* Coleridge's Translation. 



THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 319 

tended to this largeness. Buddhism is an expres- 
sion of it. The Buddliist, who thanks no man, who 
says " Do not flatter your benefactors," but who, in 
his conviction that every good deed can by no pos- 
sibility escape its reward, will not deceive the ben- 
efactor by pretending that he has done more than 
he should, is a Transcendentaligt. 

You will see by this sketch that there is no such 
thing as a Transcendental party ; that there is no 
pure Transcendentalist ; that we know of none but 
prophets and heralds of such a philosophy ; that 
all who by strong bias of nature have leaned to the 
spiritual side in doctrine, have stopped short of 
their goal. We have had many harbingers and 
forerunners ; but of a purely spiritual life, history 
has afforded no example. I mean we have yet no 
man who has leaned entirely on his character, and 
eaten angels' food ; who, trusting to his sentiments, 
found life made of miracles ; who, working for uni- 
versal aims, found himself fed, he knew not how ; 
clothed, sheltered, and weaponed, he knew not how, 
and yet it was done by his own hands. Only in 
the instinct of the lower animals we fuid the sug- 
gestion of the methods of it, and something higher 
than our understanding. The squirrel hoards nuts 
and the bee gathers honey, without knowing what 
they do, and they are thus provided for without seK- 
ishiiess or disgrace. 



820 THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 

Shall we say then that Transcendentalism is the 
Saturnalia or excess of Faith ; the presentiment of 
a faith proper to man in his integrity, excessive 
only when his imj)erfect obedience hinders the sat- 
isfaction of his wish ? Nature is transcendental, 
exists primarily, necessarily, ever works and ad- 
vances, yet takes no thought for the morrow. Man 
owns the dignity of the life which throbs around 
him, in chemistry, and tree, and animal, and in the 
involuntary functions of his own body ; yet he is 
balked when he tries to fling himself into this en- 
chanted circle, where all is done without degrada- 
tion. Yet genius and virtue predict in man the 
same absence of private ends and of condescension 
to circumstances, united with every trait and talent 
of beauty and power. 

This way of thinking, falling on Roman times, 
made Stoic philosophers ; falling on despotic times, 
made patriot Catos and Brutuses ; falling on su- 
perstitious times, made prophets and apostles ; on 
popish times, made protestants and ascetic monks, 
preachers of Faith against the preachers of Works; 
on prelatical times, made Puritans and Quakers ; 
and falling on Unitarian and commercial times, 
makes the peculiar shades of Idealism which we 
know. 

It is well known to most of my audience that the 
Idealism of the present day acquired the name of 



THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 321 

Tvanseenclental from the use of that term by Im- 
manuel Kant, of Koiiigsberg, who replied to the 
skeptical philosophy of Locke, which insisted that 
there was nothing in the intellect which was not 
previously in the experience of the senses, by show- 
ing that there was a very important class of ideas 
or imperative forms, which did not come by exi3e- 
rience, but through which experience was acquired ; 
that these were intuitions of the mind itself ; and 
he denominated them Transcendental forms. The 
extraordinary profoundness and precision of that 
man's thinking have given vogue to his nomencla- 
ture, in Europe and America, to that extent that 
whatever belongs to the class of intuitive thought 
is popularly called at the present day Transcenden- 
tal. 

Although, as we have said, there is no pure 
Transcendentalist, yet the tendency to respect the 
intuitions and to give them, at least in our creed, 
all authority over our experience, has deeply col- 
ored the conversation and poetry of the present 
day ; and the history of genius and of religion in 
these times, though impure, and as yet not incar- 
nated in any powerful individual, will be the his- 
tory of this tendency. 

It is a sign of our times, conspicuous to the 
coarsest observer, that many intelligent and relig- 
ious persons withdraw themselves from the common 

VOL. I. 21 



822 THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 

labors and competitions of the market and the 
caucus, and betake themselves to a certain soli- 
taiy and critical way of living, from which no solid 
fruit has yet appeared to justify their separation. 
They hold themselves aloof : they feel the dispro- 
portion between their faculties and the work of- 
fered them, and they prefer to ramble in the coun- 
try and perish of ennui, to the degradation of such 
charities and such ambitions as the city can pro- 
pose to them. They are striliing work, and crying 
out for somewhat worthy to do! What they do 
is done only because they are overpowered by the 
humanities that speak on all sides ; and they con- 
sent to such labor as is open to them, though to 
their lofty dream the writing of Iliads or Hamlets, 
or the building of cities or empires seems drudg- 
ery. 

Now every one must do after his kind, be he asp 
or angel, and these must. The question which a 
wise man and a student of modern history will ask, 
is, what that kind is? And truly, as in ecclesias- 
tical history we take so much pains to know what 
the Gnostics, what the Essenes, what the Mani- 
chees, and what the Reformers believed, it woidd 
not misbecome us to inquire nearer home, what 
these companions and contemporaries of ours think 
and do, at least so far as these thoughts and actions 
appear to be not accidental and personal, but com- 



THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 323 

mon to many, and the inevitable flower of the Tree 
of Time. Our American literature and spiritual 
history are, w& confess, in the optative mood ; but 
whoso knows these seething brains, these admirable 
radicals, these unsocial worshippers, these talkers 
who talk the sun and moon away, will believe that 
this heresy cannot jDass away without leaving its 
mark. 

They are lonely ; the spirit of their writing and 
conversation is lonely ; they repel influences ; they 
shun general society ; they incline to shut them- 
selves in their cham'oer in the house, to live in the 
country rather than in the town, and to find their 
tasks and amusements in solitude. Society, to be 
sure, does not like this very well ; it saith. Whoso 
goes to walk alone, accuses the whole world ; he 
declares all to be unfit to be his companions ; it is 
very uncivil, nay, insulting; Society will retaliate. 
Meantime, this retirement does not proceed from 
any whim on the part of these separators ; but if 
any one will take pains to tallc with them, he will 
find that this part is chosen both from temperament 
and from principle ; with some imwillingness too, 
and as a choice of the less of two evils ; for these 
persons are not by nature melancholy, sour, and 
unsocial, — they are not stockish or brute, — but 
joyous, susceptible, affectionate ; they have even 
more than others a great wish to be loved. Like 



324 THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 

the yoimg Mozart, they are rather ready to cry ten 
times a day, " But are you sure you love me ? " 
Nay, if they tell you their whole thought, they will 
own that love seems to them the last and highest 
gift of nature ; that there are persons whom in 
their hearts they daily thank for existing, ~ per- 
sons whose faces are perhaps unknown to them, but 
whose fame and spirit have penetrated their soli- 
tude, — and for whose sake they wish to exist. To 
behold the beauty of another character, which in- 
spires a new interest in our own ; to behold the 
beauty lodged in a human being, with such vivacity 
of apprehension that I am instantly forced home 
to inquire if I am not deformity itself ; to behold 
in another the expression of a love so high that it 
assures itself, — assures itself also to me against 
every possible casualty excejit my unworthiness ; 
— these are degrees on the scale of human happi- 
ness to which they have ascended ; and it is a fidel- 
ity to this sentiment which has made common as- 
sociation distasteful to them. They wish a just 
and even fellowship, or none. They cannot gossip 
with you, and they do not wish, as they are sincere 
and religious, to gratify any mere ciu-iosity which 
you may entertain. Like fairies, they do not wish 
to be spoken of. Love me, they say, but do not 
ask who is my cousin and my uncle. If you do 
not need to hear my thought, because you can read 



THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 325 

it in my face and behavior, then I will tell it you 
from sunrise to sunset. If you cannot divine it, 
you would not understand what I say. I will not 
molest myself for you. I do not wish to be pro- 
faned. 

And yet, it seems as if this loneliness, and not 
this love, would prevail in their circumstances, be- 
cause of the extravagant demand they make on 
human nature. That, indeed, constitutes a new 
feature in their portrait, that they are the most ex- 
acting and extortionate critics. Their quarrel with 
every man they meet is not with his kind, but with 
his degree. There is not enough of him, — that is 
the only fault. They prolong their privilege of 
childhood in this wise ; of doing nothing, but mak- 
ing immense demands on all the gladiators in the 
lists of action and fame. They make us feel the 
strange disappointment which overcasts every hu- 
man youth. So many promising youths, and never 
a finished man ! The profound nature will have a 
savage rudeness; the delicate one v/ill be shallow, 
or the victim of sensibility ; the richly accomplished 
will have some capital absurdity ; and so every 
piece has a crack. 'T is strange, but this master- 
piece is the result of such an extreme delicacy that 
the most unobserved flaw in the boy will neutralize 
the most aspiring genius, and spoil the work. Talk 
with a seaman of the hazards to life in his profession 



326 TEE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 

and lie will ask you, ' Where are the old sailors ? 
Do you not see that all are young men?' And we, 
on this sea of human thought, in like manner in- 
quire, Where are the old idealists ? where are they 
who represented to the last generation that extrav- 
agant hope which a few happy aspirants suggest to 
ours ? In looking at the class of counsel, and 
power, and wealth, and at the matronage of the 
land, amidst all the prudence and all the triviality, 
one asks, Where are they who represented genius, 
virtue, the invisible and heavenly world, to these ? 
Are they dead, — taken in early ripeness to the 
gods, — as ancient wisdom foretold their fate ? Or 
did the high idea die out of them, and leave their 
unperfumed body as its tomb and tablet, announc- 
ing to all that the celestial inhabitant, who once 
gave them beauty, had departed ? Will it be bet- 
ter with the new generation ? We easily predict a 
fair future to each new candidate who enters the 
lists, but we are frivolous and volatile, and by low 
aims and ill example do what we can to defeat this 
hope. Then these youths bring us a rough but ef- 
fectual aid. By their unconcealed dissatisfaction 
they expose our poverty and the insignificance of 
man to man. A man is a poor limitary benefactor. 
He ought to be a shower of benefits — a great influ- 
ence, which should never let his brother go, but 
should refresh old merits continually with new ones j 



THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 327 

SO that though absent he should never be out of my 
mind, his name never far from my lips ; but if the 
earth shovdd open at my side, or my last hour 
were come, his name should be the prayer I should 
utter to the Universe. But in our experience, man 
is cheap and friendship wants its deep sense. We 
affect to dwell with our friends in their absence, 
but we do not ; when deed, word, or letter comes 
not, they let us go. These exacting children adver- 
tise us of our wants. There is no compliment, no 
smooth speech with them ; they pay you only this 
one compliment, of insatiable exjoectation ; they as- 
pire, they severely exact, and if they only stand fast 
in this watch-tower, and persist in demanding unto 
the end, and without end, then are they terrible 
friends, whereof poet and priest cannot choose but 
stand in awe ; and what if they eat clouds, and 
drink wind, they have not been without service to 
the race of man. 

With this passion for what is great and extraor- 
dinary, it cannot be wondered at that they are re- 
pelled by vulgarity and frivolity in people. They 
say to themselves, It is better to be alone than in 
bad company. And it is really a wish to be met, 
— the wish to find society for their hope and re- 
ligion, — which prompts them to shun what is called 
society. They feel that they are never so fit for 
friendship as when they have quitted mankind and 



828 THE TRANSCENDENTALTST. 

taken themselves to frientl. A pieturo, a book, a 
favorite spot in the hills or tlie woods which they 
can people with the fair and worthy creation of the 
fancy, can give them often forms so vivid that these 
for the time shall seem real, and society the illu- 
sion. 

But their solitary and fastidious manners not 
only withdraw them from the conversation, hut 
from the labors of the woild ; they are not good 
citizens, not good members of society ; unwillingly 
they bear their part of the public and jirivate bui*- 
dens ; they do not willingly share in the public 
charities, in the public religious rites, in the enter- 
prises of education, of missions foreign and domes- 
tie, in the abolition of the slave - trade, or in the . 
temperance society. They do not even like to vote. 
The philanthropists in{piire whether Transcenden- 
talism does not mean sloth : they had as lief hear 
that their friend is dead, as that he is a Tianseen- 
dentalist ; for then is he paralyzed, and can never 
do anything for humanity. What right, cries the 
good world, has the man of genius to retreat from 
work, and indulge himself ? The popular literary 
creed seems to be, ' I am a sublmie genius ; I 
ought not therefore to labor.' But genius is the 
power to labor better and more availably. Deserve 
thy genius : exalt it. The good, the illuminated, 
sit apart from the rest, censuring their diilness and 



THE TRANSCENDENTALTST. 329 

vices, as if they thought that by sitting very grand 
in their chairs, the very brokers, attorneys, and 
congressmen would see the error of their ways, and 
flock to them. But the good and wise must learn 
to act, and carry salvation to the combatants and 
demagogues in the dusty arena below. 

On the part of these children it is replied that life 
and their faculty seem to them gifts too rich to be 
squandered on such trifles as you propose to them. 
What you call your fundamental institutions, your 
great and holy causes, seem to them great abuses, 
and, when nearly seen, paltry matters. Each ' cause ' 
as it is called, — say Abolition, Temperance, say 
Calvinism, or Unitarianism, — becomes speedily a 
little shop, where the article, let it have been at first 
never so subtle and ethereal, is now made up into 
portable and convenient cakes, and retailed in small 
quantities to suit purchasers. You make very free 
use of these words ' great ' and ' holy,' but few 
things appear to them such. Few persons have any 
magnificence of nature to inspire enthusiasm, and 
the philanthropies and charities have a certain air 
of quackery. As to the general course of living, 
and the daily employments of men, they cannot see 
much virtue in these, since they are parts of this 
vicious circle ; and as no great ends are answered 
by the men, there is nothing noble in the arts by 
which they are maintained. Nay, they have made 



380 THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 

the experiment and found that from the liberal pro- 
fessions to the coarsest manual labor, and from the 
courtesies of the academy and the college to the 
conventions of the cotillon-room and the morning 
call, there is a spirit of cowardly compromise and 
seeming which intimates a frightful skepticism, a 
life without love, and an activity without an aim. 

Unless the action is necessary, unless it is ade- 
quate, I do not wish to perform it. I do not wish to 
do one thing but once. I do not love routine. Once 
possessed of the principle, it is equally easy to make 
four or forty thousand applications of it. A great 
man will be content to have indicated in any the 
slightest manner his perception of the reigning Idea 
of his time, and will leave to those who like it the 
multiplication of examples. When he has hit the 
white, the rest may shatter the target. Every thing 
admonishes us how needlessly long life is. Every 
moment of a hero so raises and cheers us that a 
twelvemonth is an age. All that the brave Xan- 
thus brings home from his wars is the recollection 
that at the storming of Samos, " in the heat of the 
battle, Pericles smiled on me, and passed on to an- 
other detachment." It is the quality of the mo- 
ment, not the number of days, of events, or of ac- 
tors, that imports. 

New, we confess, and by no means happy, is our 
condition : if you want the aid of our labor, we 



THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 331 

ourselves stand in greater want of the labor. We 
are miserable with inaction. We perish of rest and 
rust : but we do not like your work. 

' Then,' says the world, ' show me your own.' 

' We have none.' 

' What will you do, then ? ' cries the world. 

' We will wait.' 

' How long ? ' 

'Until the Universe beckons and calls us to 
work.' 

' But whilst you wait, you grow old and useless.' 

' Be it so : I can sit in a corner and perish (as 
you call it), but I will not move until I have the 
highest command. If no call should come for 
years, for centuries, then I know that the want of 
the Universe is the attestation of faith by my absti- 
nence. Your virtuous projects, so called, do not 
cheer me. I know that which shall come will cheer 
me. If I cannot work at least I need not He. 
All that is clearly due to-day is not to lie. In 
other places other men have encountered sharp 
trials, and have behaved themselves well. The 
martyrs were sawn asunder, or hung alive on meat- 
hooks. Cannot we screw our courage to patience 
and truth, and without complaint, or even with 
good-humor, await our turn of action in the Infinite 
Counsels ? ' 

But to come a little closer to the secret of these 



332 THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 

persons, we must say that to them it seems a very 
easy matter to answer the objections of the man of 
the world, but not so easy to dispose of the doubts 
and objections that occur to themselves. They are 
exercised in their own spirit with queries which ac- 
quaint them with all adversity, and with the trials 
of the bravest heroes. When I asked them concern- 
ing their private experience, they answered some- 
what in this wise : It is not to be denied that there 
must be some wide difference between my faith and 
other faith ; and mine is a certain brief experience, 
which sui'prised me in the liighway or in the market, 
in some place, at some time, — whether in the body 
or out of the body, God knoweth, — and made me 
aware that 1 had played the fool with fools all this 
time, but that law existed for me and for all ; that 
to me belonged trust, a child's trust and obedience, 
and the worship of ideas, and I should never be 
fool more. Well, in the space of an hour probably, 
I was let down from this height ; I was at my old 
tricks, the selfish member of a selfish society. My 
life is superficial, takes no root in the deep world ; 
I ask, When shall I die and be relieved of the re- 
sj^onsibility of seeing an Universe which I do not 
use ? I wish to exchange this flash-of -lightning 
faith for continuous daylight, tliis fever-glow for a 
benign climate. 

These two states of thought diverge every mc 



THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 333 

ment, and stand in wild contrast. To liim who 
looks at his life from these moments of illumination, 
it will seem that he skulks and plays a mean, shift- 
less and subaltern part in the world. That is to be 
done which he has not skill to do, or to be said 
which others can say better, and he lies by, or oc- 
cupies his hands with some plaything, until his hour 
comes again. Much of our reading, much of our 
labor, seems mere waiting : it was not that we were 
born for. Any other could do it as well or better. 
So little skUl enters into these works, so little do 
they mix with the divine life, that it really signifies 
little what we do, whether we turn a grindstone, or 
ride, or run, or make fortunes, or govern the state. 
The worst feature of this double consciousness is, 
that the two lives, of the understanding and of the 
sold, which we lead, really show very little relation 
to each other ; never meet and measure each other : 
one prevails now, all buzz and din ; and the other 
prevails then, all infinitude and paradise ; and, with 
the progress of life, the two discover no greater 
disposition to reconcile themselves. Yet, what is 
my faith ? What am I ? What but a thought of 
serenity and independence, an abode in the deep 
blue sky ? Presently the clouds shut down again ; 
yet we retain the belief that this petty web we 
weave will at last be overshot and reticulated with 
veins of the blue, and that the moments will char- 



334 THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 

acterize the days. Patience, then, is for us, is it 
not ? Patience, and still patience. When we pass, 
as presently we shall, into some new infinitude, out 
of this Iceland of negations, it will please us to 
reflect that though we had few virtues or conso- 
lations, we bore with our iudigence, nor once strove 
to repair it with hypocrisy or false heat of any 
kind. 

But this class are not sufficiently characterized if 
we omit to add that they are lovers and worship- 
pers of Beauty. In the eternal trinity of Truth, 
Goodness, and Beauty, each in its perfection includ- 
ing the three, they prefer to make Beauty the sign 
and head. Something of the same taste is observ- 
able in all the moral movements of the time, in the 
religious and benevolent enterprises. They have a 
liberal, even an aesthetic spirit. A reference to 
Beauty in action sounds to be sure a little hollow 
and ridicidous in the ears of the old church. In 
politics, it has often sufficed, when they treated of 
justice, if they kept the bounds of selfish calculation. 
If they granted restitution, it was prudence which 
granted it. But the justice which is now claimed 
for the black, and the pauper, and the drunkard, is 
for Beauty, — is for a necessity to the soul of the 
agent, not of the beneficiary. I say this is the 
tendency, not yet the realization. Our virtue tot- 
ters and trips, does not yet wallv firmly. Its repre- 



THE TRANSCENDENTAL! ST. 335 

sentatives are austere ; tliey preach and denounce ; 
their rectitude is not yet a grace. They are still 
liable to that slight taint of burlesque which in our 
strange world attaches to the zealot. A saint 
should be as dear as the ajiple of the eye. Yet we 
are tempted to smile, and we flee from the working 
to the speculative reformer, to escape that same 
slight ridicule. Alas for these days of derision and 
criticism ! We call the Beautiful the highest, be- 
cause it appears to us the golden mean, escaping 
the dowdiness of the good and the heartlessness of 
the true. They are lovers of nature also, and find 
an indemnity in the inviolable order of the world 
for the violated order and grace of man. 

There is, no doubt, a great deal of well-founded 
objection to be spoken or felt against the sayings 
and doings of this class, some of whose traits we 
have selected ; no doubt they will lay themselves 
open to criticism and to lampoons, and as ridiculous 
stories will be to be told of them as of any. There 
will be cant and pretension ; there will be subtilty 
and moonshine. These persons are of unequal 
strength, and do not all prosper. They complain 
that everything around them must be denied ; and 
if feeble, it takes all their strength to deny, before 
they can begin to lead their own life. Grave se- 
niors insist on their respect to this institution and 
that usage ; to an obsolete history ; to some voca- 



336 THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 

tion, or college, or etiquette, or beneficiary, or 
charity, or morning or evening call, which they re- 
sist as what does not concern them. But it costs 
such sleepless nights, alienations and misgivings, 
— they have so many moods about it ; these old 
guardians never change their minds ; they have 
but one mood on the subject, namely, that Antony 
is very perverse, — that it is quite as much as An- 
tony can do to assert his rights, abstain from what 
he thinks foolish, and keep his temper. He can- 
not help the reaction of this injustice in his own 
mind. Pie is braced-up and stilted ; all freedom 
and flowing genius, aU sallies of wit and frolic na- 
ture are quite out of the question ; it is weU if he 
can keep from lying, injustice, and suicide. This 
is no time for gaiety and grace. His strength and 
spirits are wasted in rejection. But the strong 
spirits overpower those around them without effort. 
Their thought and emotion comes in like a flood, 
quite withdraws them from all notice of these carp- 
ing critics ; they surrender themselves with glad 
heart to the heavenly guide, and only by implica- 
tion reject the clamorous nonsense of the hour. 
Grave seniors talk to the deaf, — church and old 
book mumble and ritualize to an luiheeding, preoc- 
cupied and advancing mind, and thus they by hap- 
piness of greater momentum lose no time, but take 
the right road at first. 



THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 337 

But all these of whom I speak are not profi- 
cients ; they are novices ; they only show the road 
in which man should travel, when the soul has 
greater health and prowess. Yet let them feel the 
dignity of their charge, and deserve a larger power. 
Their heart is the ark in which the fire is concealed 
which shall burn in a broader and universal flame. 
Let them obey the Genius then most when his im- 
pulse is wildest ; then most when he seems to lead 
to uninhabitable deserts of thought and life ; for 
the path which the hero travels alone is the high- 
way of health and benefit to mankind. What is 
the privilege and nobility of our nature but its per- 
sistency, through its power to attach itseK to what 
is permanent ? 

Society also has its duties in reference to this 
class, and must behold them with what charity it 
can. Possibly some benefit may yet accrue from 
them to the state. In our Mechanics' Fair, there 
must be not only bridges, ploughs, carpenters' 
planes, and baking troughs, but also some few finer 
instruments, — rain gauges, thermometers, and tel- 
escopes ; and in society, besides farmers, sailors, 
and weavers, there must be a few persons of purer 
fire kept specially as gauges and meters of charac- 
ter ; persons of a fine, detecting instinct, who note 
the smallest accimiulations of wit and feeling in 

the bystander. Perhaps too there might be room 
VOL. I. 22 



338 THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 

for the exciters and monitors ; collectors of the 
heavenly spark, with powcu* to convey the electric- 
ity to others. Or, as the stormed-tossed vessel at 
sea speaks the frigate or ' line packet ' to learn its 
longitude, so it may not be without its advantage 
that we should now and then encounter rare and 
gifted men, to compare the points of our spiritual 
compass, and verify our bearings from superior 
chronometers. 

Amidst the downward tendency and proneness 
of things, when every voice is raised for a new 
road or another statute or a subscription of stock ; 
for an improvement in dress, or in dentistry ; for 
a new house or a larger business ; for a political 
party, or the division of an estate ; — will you not 
tolerate one or two solitary voices in the land, 
speaking for thoughts and principles not market- 
able or perishable ? Soon these improvements and 
mechanical inventions will be superseded ; these 
modes of living lost out of memory ; these cities 
rotted, ruined by war, by new inventions, by new 
seats of trade, or the geologic changes : — all gone, 
lilce the shells wliich sprinlde the sea-beach with 
a white colony to-day, forever i-enewed to be for- 
ever destroyed. But the thoughts which these few 
hermits strove to proclaim by silence as well as by 
speech, not only by what they did, but by what 
they forebore to do, shall abide in beauty and 



THE TRANSCENDENTALIST. 339 

strength, to reorganize themselves in nature, to in- 
vest themselves anew in other, perhaps higher en- 
dowed and happier mixed clay than ours, in fuller 
union with the surrounding system. 



THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 

A LECTURE READ BEFORE THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSO- 
CIATION, BOSTON, FEBRUARY 7, 1844. 



THE YOUNG AMEEICAN. 



Gentlemen : 

It is remarkable that our people have their intel- 
lectual culture from one country and their duties 
from another. This false state of things is newly in 
a way to be corrected. America is beginning- to as- 
sert herself to the senses and to the imagination of 
her children, and Europe is receding in the same 
degree. This their reaction on education gives a 
new importance to the internal improvements and 
to the politics of the country. Who has not been 
stimulated to reflection by the facilities now in pro- 
gress of construction for travel and the transporta- 
tion of goods in the United States ? 

This rage of road building is beneficent for 
America, where vast distance is so main a consid- 
eration in our domestic politics and trade, inas- 
much as the great political promise of the inven- 
tion is to hold the Union staunch, whose days 
seemed already numbered by the mere inconven- 
ience of transporting representatives, judges, and 
officers across such tedious distances of land and 



344 THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 

water. Not only is distance annihilated, bnt when, 
as now, the locomotive and the steamboat, lilce 
enormous shuttles, shoot every day across the thou- 
sand various threads of national descent and em- 
ployment and bind them fast in one web, an hourly 
assimilation goes forward, and there is no danger 
that local peculiarities and hostilities should be pre- 
served. • 

1. But I hasten to speak of the utility of these 
improvements in creating an American sentiment. 
An unlooked for consequence of the railroad is the 
increased acquaintance it has given the American 
peoj)le with the boundless resources of their own 
soil. If this invention has reduced England to a 
third of its size, by bringing people so much nearer, 
in this coimtry it has given a new celerity to time., 
or anticipated by fifty years the planting of tracts 
of land, the choice of water privileges, the working 
of mines, and other natural advantages. Kailroad 
iron is a magician's rod, in its power to evoke the 
sleeping energies of land and water. 

The railroad is but one arrow in our quiver, 
though it has great value as a sort of yard-stick 
and surveyor's line. The bountiful continent is 
ours, state on state, and territory on territory, to 
the waves of the Pacific sea ; 

" Oui- garden is the immeasurable earth, 
The heaven's bhie pillars are Medea's house." 



THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 345 

The task of surveying-, planting, and building upon 
this immense tract requires an education and a 
sentiment commensurate thereto. A consciousness 
of this fact is beginning to take the place of the 
purely trading- spirit and education which sprang 
up whilst all the population lived on the fringe of 
sea-coast. And even on the coast, prudent men 
have begun to see that every American should be 
educated with a view to the values of laud. The 
arts of engineering and of architecture are studied ; 
scientific agriculture is an object of growing atten- 
tion ; the mineral riches are explored ; limestone, 
coal, slate, and iron ; and the value of timber-lands 
is enhanced. 

Columbus alleged as a reason for seeking a con- 
tinent in the West, that the harmony of nature re- 
quired a great tract of land in the western hemi- 
sphere, to balance the known extent of land in the 
eastern ; and it now appears that we must estimate 
the native values of this broad region to redress the 
balance of our own judgments, and appreciate the 
advantages opened to the human race in this coun- 
try which is our fortunate home. The land is the 
appointed remedy for whatever is false and fantas- 
tic in our culture. The continent we inhabit is to 
be physic and food for our mind, as well as our 
body. The land, with its tranquilizing, sanative 
influences, is to repair the errors of a scholastic and 



346 THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 

traditional education, and bi'ing us into just rela- 
tions with men and things. 

The habit of living in the presence of these in- 
vitations of natural wealth is not inoperative ; and 
this habit, combined with the moral sentiment 
which, in the recent years, has interrogated every 
institution, usage, and law, has naturally given a 
strong direction to the wishes and aims of active 
young men, to withdraw from cities and cultivate 
the soil. This inclination has appeared in the most 
unlooked for quarters, in men supposed to be ab- 
sorbed in business, and in those connected with the 
liberal professions. And since the walks of trade 
were crowded, whilst that of agriculture cannot 
easily be, inasmuch as the farmer who is not wanted 
by others can yet grow his own bread, whilst the 
manufacturer or the trader, who is not wanted, can- 
not, — this seemed a happy tendency. For beside 
all the moral benefit which we may expect from the 
farmer's profession, when a man enters it consid- 
erately ; this promised the conquering of the soil, 
plenty, and beyond this the adorning of the country 
with every advantage and ornament which labor, 
ingenuity, and affection for a man's home, could 
suggest. 

Meantime, with cheap land, and the pacific dis- 
position of the people, everything invites to the arts 
of agricidture, of gardening, and domestic arclii- 



THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 347 

tecture. PuLlIc gardens, on the scale of sueli plan- 
tations in Europe and Asia, are now unknown to 
us. There is no feature of the old countries that 
strikes an American with more agreeable surprise 
than the beautiful gardens of Europe ; such as the 
Boboli in Florence, the Villa Borghese in Rome, 
the Villa d'Este in Tivoli, the gardens at Munich 
and at Frankfort on the Main : works easily imi- 
tated here, and which might well make the land 
dear to the citizen, and inflame patriotism. It is 
the fine art which is left for us, now that sculjiture, 
painting, and religious and civil architecture have 
become effete, and have passed into second child- 
hood. We have twenty degrees of latitude wherein 
to choose a seat, and the new modes of travelling 
enlarge the opportunity of selection, by making it 
easy to cultivate very distant tracts and yet remain 
in strict intercourse with the centres of trade and 
population. And the whole force of all the arts 
goes to facilitate the decoration of lands and dwell- 
ings. A garden has this advantage, that it makes 
it indifferent where you live. A well-laid garden 
makes the face of the country of no account ; let 
that be low or high, grand or mean, you have made 
a beautiful abode worthy of man. If the land- 
scape is pleasing, the garden shows it, — if tame, 
it excludes it. A little grove, which any farmer 
can find or cause to grow near his house, will in a 



348 THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 

few years make cataracts and chains of mountains 
quite unnecessary to his scenery ; and he is so con- 
tented with his alleys, woodlands, orchards and 
river, that Niagara, and the Notch of the White 
Hills, and Nantasket Beach, are superfluities. And 
yet the selection of a fit houselot has the same 
advantage over an indifferent one, as the selection 
to a given employment of a man who has a genius 
for that woi'k. In the last case the culture of 
years will never make the most painstaking ap- 
prentice his equal : no more will gardening give 
the advantage of a happy site to a house in a hole 
or on a pinnacle. In America we have hitherto 
little to boast in this kind. The cities drain the 
country of the best part of its population : the 
flower of the youth, of both sexes, goes into the 
towns, and the coiuitry is cultivated by a so much 
inferior class. The land, — travel a whole day to- 
gether, — looks poverty-stricken, and the buildings 
plain and poor. In Europe, where society has an 
aristocratic structure, the land is full of men of the 
best stock and the best culture, whose interest and 
pride it is to remain half the year on their estates, 
and to fill them with every convenience and orna- 
ment. Of course these make model farms, and 
model architecture, and are a constant education to 
the eye of the surrounding popidation. Whatever 
events in progress shall go to disgust men with 



THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 349 

cities and infuse into them the passion for country- 
life and country pleasures, wiU render a service to 
the whole face of this continent, and will further 
the most poetic of all the occupations of real life, 
the bringing out by art the native but hidden 
graces of the landscape. 

I look on such imijrovements also as directly 
tending to endear the land to the inhabitant. Any 
relation to the land, the habit of tilling it, or min- 
ing it, or even hunting on it, generates the feeling 
of patriotism. He who keeps shoj) on it, or he who 
merely uses it as a support to his desk and ledger, 
or to his manufactory, values it less. The vast 
majority of the people of this country live by the 
land, and carry its quality in their manners and 
opinions. We in the Atlantic states, by position, 
have been commercial, and have, as I said, imbibed 
easily an European culture. Luckily for us, now 
that steam has narrowed the Atlantic to a strait, 
the nervous, rocky West is intruding a new and 
continental element into the national mind, and we 
shall yet have an American genius. How much 
better when the whole land is a garden, and the 
people have grown up in the bowers of a paradise. 
Without looking then to those extraordinary social 
influences which are now acting in precisely this 
direction, but only at what is inevitably doing 
around us, I think we must regard the land as a 



350 THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 

commanding and increasing power on the citizen, 
the sanative and Americanizing influence, which 
promises to disclose new virtues for ages to come. 

2. In the second place, the uprise and culmina- 
tion of the new and anti feudal power of Com- 
merce is the political fact of most significance to 
the American at this hour. 

We cannot look on the freedom of this country, 
in connexion with its youth, without a presentiment 
that here shall laws and institutions exist on some 
scale of proportion to the majesty of nature. To 
men legislating for the area betwixt the two oceans, 
betwixt the snows and the tropics, somewhat of the 
gravity of nature will infuse itself into the code. 
A heterogeneous population crowding on all ships 
from all corners of the world to the great gates of 
North America, namely Boston, New York, and 
New Orleans, and thence proceeding inward to the 
prairie and the mountains, and quickly contribut- 
ing their private thought to the public opinion, 
their toll to the treasury, and their vote to the elec- 
tion, it cannot be doubted that the legislation of 
this country should become more catholic and cos- 
mopolitan than that of any other. It seems so 
easy for America to inspire and express the most 
expansive and humane spirit ; new-born, free, health- 
ful, strong, the land of the laborer, of the democrat, 
of the philanthropist, of the believer, of the saint, 



THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 351 

she should speak for the human race. It is the 
country of the Future. From Washington, prover- 
bially ' the city of magnificent distances,' through 
all its cities, states, and territories, it is a comitry 
of beginnings, of projects, of designs, of expecta- 
tions. 

Gentlemen, there is a sublime and friendly Des- 
tiny by which the human race is guided, — the 
race never dying, the individual never spared, — 
to results affecting masses and ages. Men are nar- 
row and selfish, but the Genius or Destiny is not 
narrow, but beneficent. It is not discovered in 
their calculated and voluntary activity, but in what 
befalls, with or without their design. Only what 
is inevitable interests us, and it turns out that love 
and good are inevitable, and in the course of 
thing's. That Genius has infused itself into nature. 
It indicates itself by a small excess of good, a small 
balance in brute facts always favorable to the side 
of reason. All the facts in any part of nature 
shall be tabulated and the results shall indicate 
the same security and benefit ; so slight as to be 
hardly observable, and yet it is there. The sphere 
is flattened at the poles and swelled at the equa- 
tor ; a form flowing necessarily from the fluid state, 
yet the form, the mathematician assures us, re- 
quired to prevent the protuberances of the conti- 
nent, or even of lesser mountains cast up at any 



352 THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 

time by earthquakes, from continually deranging 
the axis of the earth. The census of the popula- 
tion is found to keep an invariable equality in the 
sexes, with a trifling predominance in favor of the 
male, as if to counterbalance the necessarily in- 
creased exposure of male life in war, navigation, 
and other accidents. Remark the unceasing effort 
throughout nature at somewhat better than the ac- 
tual creatures : amelioration in nature, which alone 
permits and authorizes amelioration in mankind. 
The population of the world is a conditional popu- 
lation ; these are not the best, but the best that 
could live in the existing state of soils, gases, ani- 
mals and morals : the best that could yet live ; 
there shall be a better, please God. This Genius 
or Destiny is of the sternest administration, though 
rumors exist of its secret tenderness. It may be 
styled a cruel kindness, serving the whole even to 
the ruin of the member ; a terrible communist, re- 
serving all profits to the community, without divi- 
dend to individuals. Its law is, you shall have 
everything as a member, nothing to yourself. For 
Nature is the noblest engineer, yet uses a grinding 
economy, working up all that is wasted to-day into 
to-morrow's creation ; — not a superfluous grain of 
sand, for all the ostentation she makes of expense 
and public works. It is because Nature thus saves 
and uses, laboring for the general, that we poor 



THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 353 

particulars are so crushed and straitened, and find 
it so hard to live. She flung us out in her plenty, 
but we cannot shed a hair or a paring of a nail but 
instantly she snatches at the shred and appropriates 
it to the general stock. Our condition is like that 
of the poor wolves : if one of the flock wound him- 
self or so much as limp, the rest eat him up mcon- 
tinently. 

That serene Power interposes the check upon 
the caprices and ofliciousness of our wills. Its 
charity is not our charity. One of its agents is 
our wiU, but that which expresses itself in our will 
is stronger than our will. We are very forward to 
help it, but it will not be accelerated. It resists 
our meddling, eleemosynary contrivances. We de- 
vise sumptuary and relief laws, but the j)rinciple 
of population is always reducing wages to the low- 
est pittance on which hmnan life can be sustained. 
We legislate against forestalling and monopoly ; 
we woidd have a common granary for the poor ; 
but the selfishness which hoards the corn for high 
prices is the preventive of famine ; and the law of 
self-preservation is surer policy than any legislation 
can be. We concoct eleemosynary systems, and 
it turns out that our charity increases pauperism. 
We inflate our paper currency, we repair commerce 
with unlimited credit, and are presently visited 
with unlimited bankruptcy. 

VOL. I. 23 



354 THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 

It is easy to see that the existing generation are 
conspiring with a beneficence which in its working 
for coming generations, sacrifices the passing one ; 
which infatuates the most selfish men to act against 
their private interest for the public welfare. We 
build railroads, we know not for what or for whom ; 
but one thing is certain, that we who build will re- 
ceive the very smallest share of benefit. Benefit 
will accrue, they are essential to the country, but 
that will be felt not until we are no longer country- 
men. We do the like in all matters : — 

" Man's heart the Almighty to the Future set 
By secret and inviolable springs." 

We plant trees, we build stone houses, we redeem 
the waste, we make prospective laws, we found col- 
leges and hospitals, for remote generations. We 
should be mortified to learn that the little benefit 
we chanced in our own persons to receive was the 
utmost they would yield. 

The history of commerce is the record of this 
beneficent tendency. The patriarchal form of gov- 
ernment readily becomes despotic, as each person 
may see in his own family. Fathers wish to be 
fathers of the minds of their children, and behold 
with impatience a new character and way of think- 
ing presuming to show itseK in their own son or 
daughter. This feeling, which all their love and 
pride in the powers of their children cannot sub* 



THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 355 

due, becomes petulance and tyranny when the head 
of the clan, the emperor of an empire, deals with 
the same difference of opinion in his subjects. 
Difference of opinion is the one crime which kings 
never forgive. An empire is an immense egotism. 
" I am the State," said the French Louis. When 
a French ambassador mentioned to Paul of Russia 
that a man of consequence in St. Petersburg was 
interesting himself in some matter, the Czar inter- 
rupted him, — " There is no man of consequence 
in this empire but he with whom 1 am actually 
speaking ; and so long only as I am speaking to 
him is he of any consequence." And the Emperor 
Nicholas is reported to have said to his council, 
" The age is embarrassed with new opinions ; rely 
on me gentlemen, I shall oppose an iron will to 
the progress of liberal opinions." 

It is easy to see that this patriarchal or family 
management gets to be rather troublesome to all 
but the papa ; the sceptre comes to be a crow-bar. 
And this unpleasant egotism. Feudalism opposes 
and finally destroys. The king is compelled to call 
in the aid of his brothers and cousins and remote 
relations, to help him keep his overgrown house in 
order ; and tliis club of noblemen always come at 
last to have a will of their own ; they combine to 
brave the sovereign, and call in the aid of the peo- 
ple. Each chief attaches as many followers as he 



856 THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 

can, by kindness, maintenance, and gifts ; and as 
long as war lasts, the nobles, who must be soldiers, 
rule very well. But when peace comes, the nobles 
prove very whimsical and uncomfortable masters ; 
their frolics tiu-n out to be insulting and degrading 
to the commoner. Feudalism grew to be a bandit 
and brigand. 

Meantime Trade had begun to appear : Trade, a 
plant which gi'ows wherever there is peace, as soon 
as there is peace, and as long as there is peace. 
The luxury and necessity of the noble fostered it. 
And as quickly as men go to foreign parts in ships 
or caravans, a new order of things springs up ; new 
command takes place, new servants and new mas- 
ters. Their information, their wealth, their corre- 
spondence, have made them quite other men than 
left their native shore. Tliet/ are nobles now, and 
by another patent than the king's. Feudalism 
had been good, had broken the power of the kings, 
and had some good ti'aits of its own ; but it had 
grown mischievous, it was time for it to die, and as 
they say of dying people, all its faults came out. 
Trade was the strong^ man that broke it down and 
raised a new and unknown power in its place. It 
is a new agent in the world, and one of gTcat func- 
tion ; it is a very intellectual force. This displaces 
physical strength and instals computation, combin- 
ation, information, science, in its room. It calls 



THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 357 

ovit all force of a certain kind tliat slumbered in 
the former dynasties. It is now in the midst of 
its career. Feudalism is not ended yet. Our gov- 
ernments still partake largely of that element. 
Trade goes to make the governments insignificant, 
and to bring every kind of faculty of every individ- 
ual that can in any manner serve any person, on 
sale. Instead of a huge Army and Navy and Ex- 
ecutive Departments, it converts Government into 
an Intelligence-Office, where every man may find 
what he wishes to buy, and expose what he has to 
sell ; not only produce and manufactures, but art, 
skiU, and intellectual and moral values. Th^"s i^ 
the good and this the evil of trade, that it would 
put everything into market ; talent, beauty, virtue, 
and man himself. 

The philosopher and lover of man have much 
harm to say of trade ; but the historian will see 
that trade was the principle of Liberty ; that trade 
planted America and destroyed Feudalism ; that 
it makes peace and keeps peace, and it will abolish 
slavery. We complain of its oppression of the 
poor, and of its building up a new aristocracy on 
the ruins of the aristocracy it destroyed. But the 
aristocracy of trade has no permanence, is not en- 
tailed, was the result of toil and talent, the result 
of merit of some kind, and is continually falling, 
like the waves of the sea, before new claims of the 



358 THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 

same sort. Trade is an instrument in tlie hands of 
tliat friendly Power which works for us in our own 
despite. We design it thus and thus ; it turns out 
otherwise and far better. This beneficent tenden- 
cy, omnipotent without violence, exists and works. 
Every line of history inspires a confidence that wo 
shall not go far wTong ; that things mend. That is 
the moral of all we learn, that it warrants Hope, 
the prolific mother of reforms. Our part is plainly 
not to throw ourselves across the track, to block 
improvement and sit till we are stone, but to watch 
the uprise of successive mornings and to conspire 
with the new works of new days. Government has 
been a fossil ; it shoidd be a plant. I conceive that 
' the offitje of statute law should be to exj^ress and 
not to ii..j^^ede the mind of mankind. New thoughts, 
new things. Trade was one instrument, but Trade 
is also but for a time, and must give way to some- 
what broader and better, whose signs are already 
dawning in the sky. 

3. I pass to speak of the signs of that which is 
the sequel of trade. 

In consequence of the revolution in the state of 
society wrought by trade, Government in our times 
is beginning to wear a clumsy and cumbrous ap- 
pearance. We have already seen our way to 
shorter methods. The time is full of eood sijrns. 
Some of them shall ripen to fruit. All this bene- 



THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 359 

ficent socialism is a friendly omen, and the swelling 
cry of voices for the education of the people indi- 
cates that Government has other ofiices than those 
of banker and executioner. Witness the new move- 
ments in the civilized world, the Communism of 
France, Germany, and Switzerland ; the Trades' 
Unions ; the English League against the Corn Laws ; 
and the whole Industrial Statistics, so called. In 
Paris, the blouse, the badge of the operative, has 
begun to make its appearance m the saloons. Wit- 
ness too the spectacle of three Communities which 
have within a very short time sprung up within 
this Commonwealth, besides several others under- 
taken by citizens of Massachusetts within the ter- 
ritory of other States. These proceeded from a 
variety of motives, from an impatience of many 
usages in common life, from a wish for gTeater free- 
dom than the manners and opinions of society j)er- 
mitted, but in great part from a feeling that the 
true offices of the State, the State had let fall to the 
ground ; that in the scramble of parties for the 
public purse, the main duties of government were 
omitted, — the duty to instruct the ignorant, to 
supply the poor with work and with good guidance. 
These communists preferred the agricultural life as 
the most favorable condition for human cidture ; 
but they thought that the farm, as we manage it, 
did not satisfy the right ambition of man. The 



360 THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 

farmer, after sacrificing- jileasure, taste, freedom, 
thought, love, to his work, turns out often a bank- 
rupt, like the merchant. This result might well 
seem astounding. All this drudgery, from cock-crow- 
ing to starlight, for all these years, to end in 'mort- 
gages and the auctioneer's flag, and removing from 
bad to worse. It is time to have the thing looked 
into, and with a sifting criticism ascertained who is 
the fool. It seemed a, great deal worse, because the 
farmer is living in the same town with men who 
pretend to know exactly what he wants. On one 
side is agricultural chemistry, coolly exposing the 
nonsense of our spendthrift agriculture and ruin- 
ous expense of manures, and offering, by means of 
a teaspoonf ul of artificial guano, to turn a sandbank 
into corn ; and on the other, the farmer, not only 
eager for the information, but with bad crops and 
in debt and banki'uptcy, for want of it. Here are 
Etzlers and mechanical projectors, who, with the 
Fourierists, undoubtingiy affirm that the smallest 
miion would make every man rich ; — and, on the 
other side, a multitude of j50or men and women 
seeking work, and who cannot find enough to pay 
their board. The science is confident, and surely 
the poverty is real. If any means could be found 
to bring these two together ! 

This was one design of the projectors of the As- 
sociations which are now making their first feeble 



THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 361 

expermients. They were founded in love and in 
labor. They proposed, as you know, that all men 
should take a part in the manual toil, and proposed 
to amend the condition of men by substituting- har- 
monious for hostile industry. It was a noble thought 
of Fourier, which gives a favorable idea of his sys- 
tem, to distinguish in liis Phalanx a class as the 
Sacred Band, by whom whatever duties were dis- 
agreeable and likely to be omitted, were to be as- 
sumed. 

At least an economical success seemed certain for 
the enterprise, and that agricidtural association 
must, sooner or later, fix the price of bread, and 
drive single farmers into association in seK-def ence ; 
as the great commercial and manufacturing com- 
panies had already done. The Community is 
only the continuation of the same movement which 
made the joint-stock companies for manufactures, 
mining, insurance, banking, and so forth. It has 
turned out cheaper to make calico by companies ; 
and it is proposed to plant corn and to bake bread 
by companies. 

Undoubtedly, abundant mistakes will be made 
by these first adventurers, which will draw ridicule 
on their schemes. I think for example that they 
exaggerate the importance of a favorite jDroject of 
theirs, that of paying talent and labor at one rate, 
paying all sorts of service at one rate, say ten cents 



862 THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 

the hour. They have paid it so ; but not an in- 
stant would a dime remain a dime. In one hand 
it became an eagle as it fell, and in another hand a 
copper cent. For the whole value of the dime is in 
knowing what to do with it. One man buys with 
it a laud-title of an Indian, and makes his posterity 
princes ; or buys corn enough to feed the world ; 
or pen, ink, and paper, or a painter's brush, by 
which he can communicate himself to the human 
race as if he were fire ; and the other buys barley 
candy. Money is of no value ; it cannot sjDend it- 
self. All depends on the skill of the spender. 
Whether too the objection almost universally felt 
by such women in the community as were mothers, to 
an associate life, to a common table, and a common 
nursery, etc., setting a higher value on the private 
family, with poverty, than on an association with 
wealth, will not prove insuperable, remains to be 
determined. 

But the Communities aimed at a higher success 
in securing to all their members an equal and 
thorough education. And on the whole one may 
say that aims so generous and so forced on them 
by the times, will not be relinquished, even if these at- 
tempts fail, but will be prosecuted until they succeed. 

This is the value of the Communities ; not what 
they have done, but the revolution which they in- 
dicate as on the way. Yes, Government must edu- 



THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 363 

cate the poor man. Look across the country from 
any hill -side around us and the landscape seems 
to crave Government. The actual differences of 
men must be acknowledged, and met with love and 
wisdom. These rising grounds which command 
the champaign below, seem to ask for lords, true 
lords, lancIAovA^, who understand the land and its 
uses and the applicabilities of men, and whose 
government would be what it should, namely me- 
diation between want and supply. How gladly 
would each citizen j^ay a commission for the sup- 
port and continuation of good guidance. None 
should be a governor who has not a talent for 
governing. Now many people have a native skill 
for carving out business for many hands ; a genius 
for the disposition of affairs ; and are never hap- 
pier than when difficult practical questions, which 
embarrass other men, are to be solved. All lies 
in light before them ; they are in their element. 
Could any means be contrived to appoint only 
these ! There really seems a progress tov/ards 
such a state of things in wliicli this work shall be 
done by these natural workmen ; and this, not cer- 
tainly through any increased discretion shown by 
the citizens at elections, but by the gradual con- 
tempt into which official government falls, and the 
increasing disposition of private adventurers to as- 
sume its fallen functions. Thus the national Post 



364 THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 

Office is likely to go into disuse before the private 
telegraph and the express companies. The cur- 
rency threatens to fall entirely into private hands. 
Justice is continually administered more and more 
by private reference, and not by litigation. We 
have feudal governments in a commercial age. It 
would be but an easy extension of our commercial 
system, to pay a private emperor a fee for services, 
as we pay an architect, an engineer, or a lawyer. 
If any man has a talent for righting wrong, for ad- 
ministering difficult affairs, for counselling poor 
farmers how to turn their estates to good husband- 
ry, for combining a hundred private enterprises 
to a general benefit, let him in the county-town, or 
in Court Street, put up his sign-board, Mr. Smith, 
Governor, Mr. Johnson, Working king. 

How can our young men complain of the pov- 
erty of things in New England, and not feel that 
poverty as a demand on their charity to make New 
England rich ? Where is he who seeing a thou- 
sand men useless and unhappy, and making the 
whole region forlorn by their inaction, and con- 
scious himself of possessing the faculty they want, 
does not hear his call to go and be their king? 

We must have kings, and we must have nobles. 
Nature provides such in every society, — only let 
us have the real instead of the titular. Let us 
have our leading and our inspiration from the best. 



TEE YOUNG AMERICAN. 365 

In every society some men are born to rule and 
some to advise. Let the powers be well directed, 
directed by love, and they would everywhere be 
greeted with joy and honor. The chief is the chief 
all the world over, only not his cap and his plume. 
It is only their dislike of the pretender, which 
makes men sometimes unjust to the accomplished 
man. If society were transparent, the noble woidd 
everywhere be gladly received and accredited, and 
woidd not be asked for his day's work, but woidd 
be felt as benefit, inasmuch as he was noble. That 
were his duty and stint, — to keep himself pure 
and purifying, the leaven of his nation. I think I 
see place and duties for a nobleman in every soci- 
ety ; but it is not to drink wine and ride in a fine 
coach, but to guide and adorn life for the multi- 
tude by forethought, by elegant studies, by perse- 
verance, self-devotion, and the remembrance of the 
humble old friend, by making his life secretly beau- 
tiful. 

I call upon you, young men, to obey your heart 
and be the nobility of this land. In every age of 
the world there has been a leading nation, one of 
a more generous sentiment, whose eminent citizens 
were willing to stand for the interests of general 
justice and humanity, at the risk of being called, 
by the men of the moment, chimerical and fantas- 
tic. Which shoidd be that nation but these States? 



366 THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 

Wliicli should lead that movement, if not New Eng- 
land ? Who should lead the leaders, but the Young 
American ? The people, and the world, are now 
suffering from the want of religion and honor in 
its public mind. In America, out-of-doors all 
seems a market ; in-doors an air-tight stove of con- 
ventionalism. Every body who comes into our 
houses savors of these habits ; the men, of the mar- 
ket ; the women, of the custom. I find no expres- 
sion in our state papers or legislative debate, in our 
lyceums or churches, especially in our newspapers, 
of a high national feeling, no lofty counsels that 
rightfully stir the blood. I speak of those organs 
which can be presumed to speak a poj^ular sense. 
They recommend conventional virtues, whatever 
will earn and preserve property ; always the capi- 
talist ; the college, the church, the hospital, the 
theatre, the hotel, the road, the ship, of the capital- 
ist, — whatever goes to secure, adorn, enlarge these 
is good ; what jeopardizes any of these is damna- 
ble. The ' opposition ' papers, so called, are on the 
same side. They attack the great capitalist, but 
with the aim to make a capitalist of the poor man. 
The opposition is against those who have money, 
from those who wish to have money. But who an- 
nounces to us in journal, or in pulpit, or in the 
street, the secret of heroism ? 

" Man aloue 
Can perform the impossible." 



THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 367 

I shall not need to go into an enumeration of 
our national defects and vices which require this 
Order of Censors in the State. I might not set 
down our most proclaimed offences as the worst. 
It is not often the worst trait that occasions the 
loudest outcry. Men complain of their suffering, 
and not of the crime. I fear little from the bad 
effect of Repudiation; I do not fear that it will 
spread. Stealing is a suicidal business ; you can- 
not repudiate but once. But the bold face and 
tardy repentance permitted to tliis local mischief 
reveal a public mind so preoccupied with the love 
of gain that the common sentiment of indignation 
at fraud does not act with its natural force. The 
more need of a withdrawal from the crowd, and a 
resort to the fomitain of right, by the brave. The 
timidity of our public opinion is our disease, or, 
shall I say, the publicness of opinion, the absence 
of private opinion. Good nature is plentiful, but we 
want justice, with heart of steel, to fight down the 
proud. The private mind has the access to the to- 
tality of goodness and truth that it may be a bal- 
ance to a corrupt society ; and to stand for the pri- 
vate verdict against popular clamor is the office of 
the noble. If a humane measure is propounded in 
behalf of the slave, or of the Irishman, or the 
Catholic, or for the succor of the poor ; that senti- 
ment, that project, wiU have the homage of the 



868 THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 

hero. That is his nobility, his oath of knighthood, 
to succor the helpless and oppressed ; always to 
throw himself on the side of weakness, of youth, of 
hope ; on the liberal, on the expansive side, never 
on the defensive, the conserving, the timorous, the 
lock-and-bolt system. More than our good-will we 
may not be able to give. We have our own affairs, 
our own genius, which chains each to his proper 
work. We cannot give our life to the cause of the 
debtor, of the slave, or the pauper, as another is 
doing ; but to one thing we are bound, not to blas- 
pheme the sentiment and the work of that man, not 
to throw stumbling-blocks in the way of the aboli- 
tionist, the philanthropist; as the organs of influence 
and opinion are swift to do. It is for us to confide 
in the beneficent Supreme Power, and not to rely 
on our money, and on the state because it is the 
guard of money. At this moment, the terror of old 
people and of vicious people is lest the Union of 
these states be destroyed : as if the Union had any 
other real basis than the good pleasure of a major- 
ity of the citizens to be united. But the wise and 
just man will always feel that he stands on his own 
feet ; that he imparts strength to the State, not re- 
ceives securitj^ from it ; and that if all went down, 
he and such as he would quite easily combine in a 
new and better constitution. Every great and 
memorable community has consisted of formidable 



THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 369 

individuals, who, like the Roman or the Spartan, 
lent his own spirit to the State and made it great. 
Yet only by the supernatural is a man strong : noth- 
ing is so weak as an egotist. Nothing is mightier 
than we, when we are vehicles of a truth before 
which the State and the individual are alike ephem- 
eral. 

Gentlemen, the development of our American 
internal resources, the extension to the utmost of 
the commercial system, and the appearance of new 
moral causes which are to modify the State, are 
giving an asjsect of greatness to the Future, which 
the imagination fears to open. One thing is plain 
for all men of common sense and common con- 
science, that here, here in America, is the home of 
man. After all the deductions which are to be 
made for our pitiful politics, which stake every 
gravest national question on the silly die whether 
James or whether Robert shall sit in the chair and 
hold the purse ; after all the deduction is made for 
our frivolities and insanities, there still remains an 
organic simplicity and liberty, which, when it loses 
its balance, redresses itself presently, which offers 
opportunity to the human mind not known in any 
other region. 

It is true, the public mind wants self-respect. 
We are full of vanity, of which the most signal 
proof is our sensitiveness to foreign and especially 

VOL. I. 24 



370 THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 

English censure. One cause of this is our immense 
reading, and that reading chiefly confined to the 
productions of the English press. It is also, true 
that to imaginative persons in this country there 
is somewhat bare and bald in our short history and 
unsettled wilderness. They ask, who would live 
in a new country that can live in an old ? and it is 
not strange that our youths and maidens should 
burn to see the picturesque extremes of an anti- 
quated country. But it is one thing to visit the 
Pyramids, and another to wish to live there. 
Would they like tithes to the clergy, and sevenths 
to the government, and Horse-Guards, and licensed 
press, and grief when a child is born, and threaten- 
ing, starved weavers, and a pauperism now consti- 
tuting one thirteenth of the population ? Instead 
of the open future expanding here before the eye 
of every boy to vastness, would they like the clos- 
ing in of the future to a narrow slit of sky, and 
that fast contracting to be no future ? One thing 
for instance, the beauties of aristocracy, we com- 
mend to the study of the travelling American. 
The English, the most conservative people this side 
of India, are not sensible of the restraint, but an 
American would seriously resent it. The aristoc- 
racy, incorporated by law and education, degrades 
life for the unprivileged classes. It is a question- 
able compensation to the embittered feeling of a 



THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 371 

proud commoner, the reflection that a fop, who, by 
the magic of title, paralyzes his arm and plucks 
from him half the graces and rights of a man, is 
himself also an aspirant excluded with the same 
ruthlessness from higher circles, since there is no 
end to the wheels within wheels of this spiral hea- 
ven. Something may be pardoned to the spirit of 
loyalty when it becomes fantastic ; and something 
to the imagination, for the baldest life is symbolic. 
Philip II. of Spain rated his ambassador for neg- 
lecting serious affairs in Italy, whilst he debated 
some point of honor with the French ambassador ; 
" You have left a business of importance for a cer- 
emony." The ambassador replied, "Your Maj- 
esty's self is but a ceremony." In the East, where 
the religious sentiment comes in to the support of 
the aristocracy, and in the Romish church also, 
there is a grain of sweetness in the tyranny ; but 
in England, the fact seems to me intolerable, what 
is commonly affirmed, that such is the transcendent 
honor accorded to wealth and birth, that no man 
of letters, be his eminence what it may, is received 
into the best society, except as a lion and a show. 
The English have many virtues, many advantages, 
and the proudest history of the world ; but they 
need all and more than all the resources of the 
past to indemnify a heroic gentleman in that coun- 
try for the mortifications prepared for him by the 



372 THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 

system of society, and whicli seem to impose the 
alternative to resist or to avoid it. Tliat there are 
mitigations and practical alleviations to tliis . rigor, 
is not an excuse for the rule. Commanding worth 
and personal power must sit crowned in all compa- 
nies, nor will extraordinai*y persons be slighted or 
affronted in any company of civilized men. But 
the system is an invasion of the sentiment of jus- 
tice and the native rights of men, which, however 
decorated, must lessen the value of English citizen- 
ship. It is for Englishmen to consider, not for us ; 
we only say. Let us live in America, too thankful 
for our want of feudal institutions. Our houses 
and towns are like mosses and lichens, so slight 
and new ; but youth is a fault of which we shaU 
daily mend. This land too is as old as the Flood, 
and wants no ornament or privilege which nature 
could bestow. Here stars, here woods, here hills, 
here animals, here men abound, and the vast ten- 
dencies concur of a new order. If only the men 
are employed in conspiring with the designs of the 
Spirit who led us hither and is leading us stiU, we 
shall quickly enough advance out of aU hearing of 
others' censures, out of all regrets of our own, into 
a new and more excellent social state than history 
has recorded. / 



OS 




